


Dirty, Numb, Angel Boy

by torrancing



Category: Ewan McGregor - Fandom, Trainspotting (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Kink, Canon Typical Grossness, Cheesy, Choking, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Fist Fights, Fluff and Angst, Getting Clean Together, Hurt/Comfort, I actually hold this fic very dear to me tbh, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Inappropriate Humor, Intervention, Intimate Showering, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Non-Sexual Crossdressing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overdosing, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Destruction, Sexual Tension, Slurs, They Smoke Weed and Act Like Idiots While Trying To Kick Heroin, Trans Male Character, accidental Star Wars reference, accidental violence, but not really, found family trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23593891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrancing/pseuds/torrancing
Summary: Instead of meeting Diane at Volcano, Mark Renton meets Izzy, a short-tempered, mouthy man with a soft and chewy center. He persists and Izzy allows him to come home with him, intending and expecting a one night stand, but instead gaining a genuine and confusing connection with a heroin addict.Updated Weekly.
Relationships: Mark "Rent Boy" Renton/OMC, Mark "Rent Boy" Renton/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guyz! I just wanted to say I hope you enjoy this! I know the Trainspotting fandom isn't a very active fanfiction talk point, but I got heavily inspired and have already written most of this fic. I'll be updating it weekly and continuing to work on Kill Your Darlings. This fic is really special to me and was meant to be an outlet to writing and practicing themes I'm not used to writing, but I appreciate criticism. Don't forget to leave a comment, and perhaps a kudos if you enjoy the fic.
> 
> Follow me on twitter ( @goregeouswill ) for an active user that rarely posts (I stalk, whoops)!
> 
> Buy me a coffee? My ko-fi is dumbheathen
> 
> title is lyrics from born slippy by underworld.

She was just standing there, in a slip of sheer material, looking inherently out of place. She was against the bar, blatantly ignoring most that approached her. Him. Most that approached him. He crossed his arms over his chest, not appreciating the give in the soft flesh under the fabric of the dress.

He’d been forced to a girl’s night out with a shiny new friend that his parents had urged him to consider. Not exactly forced, but he couldn’t stand to disappoint. Let down. So he forced himself into the dress and went out, left at the bar and abandoned almost immediately, save for the odd man or two that would approach him, slur out some half-assed pick-up line or offer a drink. He’d drink the contents if they met his standards, then tell whoever to fuck off.

But Mark knew none of this. Mark saw a bird walking away from the bar, snatching the drink out of the next hopeful man’s hand and splashing its contents in his face for his trouble.

And like that, Mark Renton had fallen in love. He quickly followed her outside, watched her tug a jacket on and caught up.

“Excuse me! I don’t mean tae harass you, ma’am-”

“Sir.” Mark took the interruption as an attempt at deterrence, not correction.

“I don’t mean tae harass you, but I was very impressed with the stylish and capable manner in which you dealt with that situation. I thought tae myself: she’s special-”

“He- What?” The stranger stopped, looking up at Mark as he got shorter, heels coming off to be carried in the taxi instead of worn. Mark’s eyes followed.

“What’s your name?” Mark searched his face, only just recognizing the correction, but deciding to not address it, just run with it. He hadn’t fucked since the last time he was clean, and he only just met _him_.

“Izzy.” The stranger wasn’t very talkative, seemed more annoyed by Mark’s presence than anything, eyes staying elsewhere.

“Where are you going, Izzy?” Mark gave a warm smile, inviting, keeping up with him and matching his steps.

“I’m going home.” Izzy hugged himself, the chill of the night getting through his jacket. He kept his eyes down, and when Mark caught up to his brisk pace, he caught a glimpse of stomach sticking out of a too-small shirt turned crop top.

“Where’s that?” Mark didn’t seem to be letting up.

“It’s where I live.”

“Great!” Mark clapped, rubbing his hands together in a semblance to get warm.

“What?” Izzy slowed his pace.

“I’ll come back if you like, but I’m not promising anything,” Mark laughed and raised his hands in ‘defense’ like Izzy was in on the joke. He felt like the butt of it.

“Does this work? Have you ever tried this before? On somebody who was actually interested? You see skin in a dress and drop the quickest lines you can imagine? Or am I wrong? Truth is, you’re probably the quiet, sensitive type, and if I give you a chance, I’ll get to know the inner you: adventurous, passionate, loyal, witty, lil crazy, lil bad, but that’s what girls love, huh? Guys- Girls like me?” Izzy snapped on him, having to take a deep breath and look at the stunned look on the other man’s face. He stepped away and Mark patted his pockets, looking ashamed of himself.

“Eh- I-”

Izzy situated himself in the back of the taxi, leaving the door open and staying curled in on himself slightly. Mark turned where he stood, glancing at Izzy, then the open door, his mouth forming a little ‘o’

The cabbie snapped his fingers at Renton’s blank face.

“Are you getting in or not, pal?”

He got in. _Fuck it_ , Izzy thought.

+++

The car ride was too grabby for Izzy’s taste. Mark was all hands, slipping up his sides, his thighs, up the side of his neck into a mess of curly hair to pull him closer into sloppy, tipsy kisses. It wasn’t bad, but it felt like a lie.

Izzy hooked his leg over Mark’s just in time for the taxi cab to pull up to his flat, and he was silently thankful that his parents had their own in the same block instead of sharing.

He took Mark’s hand and led him up to his flat, swatting his hand once or twice just to hold off.

Izzy was getting cold feet about this. The thought of another person seeing his naked body, someone he didn’t know, someone he wasn’t out to-

“C’mon, lover boy, itchin’ fer it,” Mark teased, fingers running up Izzy’s sides as he unlocked the door, soon pulling Mark into the dark of the space. The shade hid the flush of his cheeks at being called-

“Such ay small boy, oughta carry ye the rest of the way, huh?” Mark cooed, picking Izzy up with an embarrassingly high-pitched noise. He fought back, but not really, just enough.

“Put me _down_ , asshole!”

“Well, aye then,” Mark grinned and unceremoniously dumped Izzy on his own bed, immediately surrounded by familiar smells, but he just giggled and turned to his back, looking up at Mark where he stood at the foot. He leaned back and dug into the side table drawer, pulling out a condom. He placed it down and turned to meet his eyes again, but Mark was untying the shirt around his waist, letting it fall to the ground and playing with his button, letting it pop open. His jeans hung on his hips, makeshift crop top doing its job to draw the eye.

“Give us a kiss, lad,” Mark hummed, and Izzy crawled on his knees to the foot of the bed, leaning up and kissing him sweetly, more coordinated. Less sloppy, a new kind of sure focus.

Mark pushed Izzy back onto the bed, pulling his own shirt off and letting it hit the floor and Izzy gave a farewell to that ugly, yellow crop top, it’ll surely be missed.

He watched Mark, eyes not meeting, but the heat behind them was the same as he bunched up the sheer fabric of the dress he loathed, moving to take it off completely before Mark whistled and waved a hand.

“Leave ‘er on if ye like, Izzy,” he offered, raising his eyebrows, an obvious offer. For which Izzy was grateful, but he still felt obligated, so he chewed his lip gently and pulled the slip up, letting it pool on his stomach at the hem of his black boyshorts. Mark’s eager hands chose to ignore his own pants, soon leaning down to push his hands up the shy thighs in front of him, coaxing them open gently.

Izzy felt his skin raise with goosebumps in the wake of fingers, fingers now hooking into the waist of the boyshorts and tugging down, letting the fabric roll up with the friction. He turned his head, only for more fabric to shift and shuffle, the bed dipping between his legs after a telltale metallic rip. A hand held his jaw and turned his head to look.

Mark’s face was mere inches away, and he reclaimed his hand, both planted on open thighs, pulling hips up close to his own. Izzy glanced down and back up at Mark, relaxing under the comfort of blue eyes. He nodded, giving his silent permission.

A short moment with one movement and two gasps. Izzy made like he was carding his hand through Mark’s hair, short and buzzed against his head, soft and tingly against his palm, but he had less time to think about that, pressing their foreheads together as he adjusted to something all but foreign to him.

He forgot who moved first, but the pace picked up quickly, hips grinding and rutting together, just on this side of gentle. Mark pressed open-mouthed kisses to the corner of Izzy’s mouth, only for Izzy to hold his jaw and kiss him truly.

He wasn’t one to have sex, if he was being honest. Tension built in his abdomen too quickly for his taste, but he didn’t mind, not with Mark above him, not with the breathy moans coming from him, from both of the men.

He dug the heel of his foot into the flesh of Mark’s ass, successfully hooking him closer just in time for Mark’s thrusts to become more erratic, more desperate.

They shared a groan, breathing in each other’s noises.

Izzy came first, clenching and tensing and kissing Mark for real, a real kiss, an excuse to close his eyes and refuse to escape the moment. His legs were around Mark’s slender waist in a second, pulling him closer than close, just in time for him to shudder and gasp like his orgasm was an old friend - it was, not having had a real one since the last time he was clean - and the breathy sigh he gave was enough for Izzy to let himself relax, let Mark roll off of him and lay beside him.

“Christ, I haven’t felt that good since Archie Gemmill scored against Holland in 1978,” Mark sighed and splayed his fingers against his stomach, earning a snort of laughter from Izzy. He made quick work of the condom.

Izzy stood up, pulled the dress over his head with his back turned to Mark, tossing it in his laundry basket with a scowl at the fabric for even existing.

“Are you staying?”

“If you’ll have me.”

Izzy looked over his shoulder at him and saw him lounging comfortably where he lay, eyes closed instead of on Izzy. He relaxed again, grabbing his towel.

“Can I trust you not to steal my shit while I go clean up?” It was a tease, not an accusation in the slightest. He didn’t offer a shower to the stranger, there wasn’t really a point; Izzy doubted he’d actually be staying long.

“Cannae trust me at all, only just met me. Am comfy, though, so ah think I’ll stay right where I am, sir, if yeez deh mind, aye?” Mark spoke comfortably, punctuating his playfulness with a big toothy grin.

“I’ll only be a second, then.”

+++

Izzy gave himself what his mother called a whore’s bath. Fitting, with the expected guilt and shame that comes hand-delivered to him while the damp fabric scrapes over his skin. He dropped the soapy washrag in the sink, glad to look in the mirror and see no makeup. He didn’t smile.

He patted himself dry and slow, pulling on a tee shirt and yet another pair of black boyshorts. He’d wear boxers or even briefs, but his choice was more comfortable, and it wasn’t like there was a line of people at the door who wished to and got to view them.

Izzy was half expecting Mark to be gone. Well, he was completely expecting him to be gone. He washed slowly for that exact reason. But when he came back and Mark was still in the bed, naked, on his stomach and thumbing through a nature magazine he’d found peeking out from under the bed, Izzy couldn’t help but smile.

Mark did the same, smiling when he looked up at the shuffle of feet on carpet.

“Took ye long enough, huh?”

“Ever worn eyeshadow, Mark?” Izzy asked, kneeling on the bed at first before plopping down next to Mark in a mirror of the position he was in. He decided against it and rolled over, head lolling to look at him.

“Point taken,” A long pause, gradually growing uncomfortable before Mark spoke again, “I think ye look better without it, Iz.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

Izzy looked to the ceiling and Mark looked at the magazine again, fingers tapping against the pages. He chewed on his thumbnail, a bad habit, he knew. Mark glanced at Izzy and almost copied the action, reminded of the habit and silently urged by nobody to join, but he saw glitter. It was faint, almost clear, glittery and chipped. But there was none on his other hand.

“Ye right-handed there, lad?” Mark smiled at Izzy’s reaction, he just pulled his hand down away from his mouth and huffed. He may have rolled his eyes, but Mark wouldn’t know, he was staring at his mouth where it was shiny with spit and left open around the tip of a thumb that was no longer there.

“And what about it?”

“Well, I’ve never done nails, so ah won’t offer tae do yers,” Mark sat up, not bothering to make any effort to cover up.

“Then what was the fuckin’ point in bringing it up, man?” Izzy was quick to anger on his best days, but he was sated and surprisingly comfortable, so only a mild annoyance was married to his words.

“Do mine, paint my right hand only, though. Dinnae ken if I want that color, a bit of a red man myself,” Mark stood up and looked to Izzy in question as to where to get the nail polish, “Ye got red, lad?”

Izzy, a little confused, pointed at a drawer in his desk, watching him open it and bend over just slightly to look through.

“Ah, here we go.”

Mark held up and wiggled the bottle with his fingers, crawling back onto the bed and crossing his legs - legs that Izzy thought were a little too skinny, but he didn’t say anything, as he wouldn’t want him to point out that Izzy was a little less than skinny himself - all before waiting for Izzy to answer.

With Mark facing him, grinning a real grin and eagerly waiting, he couldn’t say no. He pulled his leg up, bending his knee and bringing it to a comfortable level.

“Give us your hand then, dear,” Izzy returned a toothy grin for the first time that night, and Mark bounced in place on the mattress. He noticed a gap in Izzy’s teeth, behind the pull of lips that weren’t chapped, unlike Mark’s. He didn’t know he’d zoned out until fingers snapped in his face.

“Your hand?” Izzy offered the same hand to Mark, taking his and placing it on his elevated knee. He opened the nail polish and hoped his hands wouldn’t shake too terribly as he applied the first layer on Mark’s thumb.

As he worked slowly, he found his eyes roaming up Mark’s arm. He didn’t know how he didn’t notice before, and he didn’t mind too much, but he was curious and didn’t know how rude it would be to ask. Without realizing it, he squeezed Mark’s finger a little harder at the joint in his effort to ignore his own curiosity.

But Mark had seen him come to his realization, had felt that squeeze from fingers more delicate than his own.

“I’m clean now. If that’s what yer worried about,” Mark offered up just as Izzy straightened up to let the first layer dry.

“I-”

Izzy looked like he was caught with his hand in a treat jar after being told no.

“I guess I was just curious. But it’s good that you’re clean. Not that it’s really my business, some one night stand prodding into your personal life,” Izzy laughed, shaking the nail polish bottle just to hear the little, metal ball inside click-clack against the glass.

Mark made a face.

“Ah don’t let just anybody paint my nails, lad, so that must make you special,” He joked as if he was trying to convince Izzy to believe he wasn’t gone come daylight. He snorted softly and shook his head, picking at the lid.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doin’ what?”

“You know what.”

Mark wasn’t pretending to not know, but the embarrassment on Izzy’s face was enough for him to retrace his steps.

“Call you special? Ah only said it once, what are you on-”

“Lad. Sir. Telling me to leave the dress on like you care. We already fucked, you already got your dick wet, you can stop now. It’s embarrassing for both of us,” Izzy huffed, not looking at Mark for the entirety of his ‘outburst.’ He just opened the bottle and started on the second layer, hoping Mark couldn’t hear the pounding in his chest or feel the anxiety bubbling in his stomach.

Mark shifted where he sat, face not really changing, aside from blinking confusion and opening his mouth to speak.

“Ah like you, ah guess. Not that ah wouldn’t respect any other person born in the wrong body or however you feel. But ah didn’t put any wiles on you, and ah only told ye to leave the dress on cause ye had a look on yer face like ye wanted to rather die. So. So this can be a one-nighter to ye, but don’t assume the worst of me,” Mark rambled on and Izzy kept his eyes on his hand, but he was no longer painting the nails; he’d stopped and was clasping his own hands together.

“An ex-junkie and a tranny walk into a bar, a love story for the ages, hm?”

Mark gaped at him and his mouth slowly formed into an open smile, wide and endearing, like a child just been given a puppy or a bike on Christmas. Izzy glanced up at him, the smile being more than contagious, soon bubbling laughter between the two of them until their eyes were closed and they were holding their stomachs.

It wasn’t particularly funny, but it released any tension being held in the room. Mark’s eyes opened first, and he just watched Izzy laugh until it faded into soft chuckles and he had to wipe his eyes.

And with that, for the second time that night, Mark Renton had fallen in love, but it wasn’t alone. Izzy didn’t have to say it, and Mark didn’t have to hear it. It was in the look shared between them followed by comfortable silence, in the way Izzy used his nails to scrape nail polish off the edges of Mark’s, in the way he blew on them to dry quicker and glanced up at Mark through his eyelashes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They laid there for just a few more minutes before Izzy could notice Mark getting antsy. Boot heavy feet wiggling where they hung off the bed, fingers tapping against the back of Izzy’s head in place of the gentle massage from before, chewing his lip._
> 
> _“I know you gotta go. Just. Just be smart; be safe?” It came as a question when it shouldn’t have. But Izzy didn’t think he should be requiring someone so new in his life to follow his will or his wants or his needs._
> 
> _So he told him he cared in the form of a question and Mark looked thankful for it anyways._
> 
> You meet Mark's friends, he meets your parents, happily ever after. Could damaged goods like you really be finding hope again? You hope so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm uploading chapter 2 early literally just because of one single comment of positive feedback and wanted to show my gratitude. I really hope you enjoy, commenter and all else that read this fic!!
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment and a kudos!
> 
> twitter: goregeouswill  
> ko-fi: dumbheathen

Mark wanted Izzy to meet his friends. It’d only been a little over a week since they’d met, but Mark was at Izzy’s every other day. His cheeks were a little more hollow, the bags under his eyes just a little more pronounced, and he’d refused to take his jacket off every visit.

Most of the time, they just laid there and talked, or slept or listened to each other’s music, getting to know each other more and more by the day, but Izzy’s mind was restless with what he knew was the truth and what they hadn’t addressed.

Mark was using again.

“I’ll meet them,” Izzy said one afternoon, while Mark was pulling his shoes on and getting ready to go home. He looked up and grinned, that same toothy grin as a week before, but a little glazed over this time.

“But there’ll be no taking of heroin, at least not in the same room.”

Silence covered the room and Mark stood up, nodding. He looked bothered but reserved, painting on another grin.

“You think I look down on you for being an addict, don’t you,” Izzy asked. It was reasonable, but it was the last thing he’d wanted.

“Well, do ye? What’s the point in banning skag from just the room you’re in if ye _don't_ see it as below ye? Not that I blame ye, we junkies are the lowest of the low, no identity but what can be found in the way the next hit feels,” Mark said with a huff, hands going up in what Izzy thought would be frustration if Mark didn’t look like he was enjoying the confrontation for what it was. A freedom. Izzy had noticed that about Mark. He’d loved to get worked up, talk about things in his own almost-philosophical way that he needed to let out or it’d rot him inside out. Thing was, Izzy knew if they had this conversation again, Mark would have an entirely different reaction. It's just who he was.

Izzy stood on his knees and walked that way to the edge of the bed where Mark stood, holding his hands out and taking Mark’s face between them when he stepped forward.

“I’m five foot three, dear. I don’t think I could see you as below me if I wanted to.”

Mark stared at him and snorted, taking his hands and laughing into hollow palms as he kissed them.

“Ye _are_ a wee cunt, huh? My little, wee cunt,” Mark cooed, laughter dissolving into half-giggles and Izzy suddenly jerking him onto the bed and pushing him playfully. Mark went still where he lay, flipping Izzy off and curling up to block the pillow coming down on him.

Izzy fell down to lay beside him, kissing his cheek.

“If you want, I’ll come by yours tomorrow. ‘Round noon?” Izzy asked, running his hand over his buzzed hair, appreciating the feel of it against his palm.

“Mhm, won’t be able to get Franco to come ‘round, but the others are likely there right now. Or at Allison’s,” Mark explained, “But I’ll make sure we’re lively by the time you come by.”

Izzy watched Mark close his eyes, his fingers still dancing their way through his hair against his scalp. Mark tapped his lips, eyes staying closed.

“Nope, you gotta say it, dear,” Izzy teased, just an inch away from his face where he lay anyways. Mark sighed and reached blindly for Izzy, pushing his hand into his hair and cupping the back of his skull just to turn himself over and take the kiss without a single word uttered.

They laid there for just a few more minutes before Izzy could notice Mark getting antsy. Boot-heavy feet wiggling where they hung off the bed, fingers tapping against the back of Izzy’s head in place of the gentle massage from before, chewing his lip. Izzy hated that he tried so hard to hide the sharp ache he knew he'd find in Mark's bones if he did some kind of fucked up autopsy.

“I know you gotta go. Just. Just be smart; be safe?” It came as a question when it shouldn’t have. But Izzy didn’t think he should be requiring someone so new in his life to follow his will or his wants or his needs.

So he told him he cared in the form of a question and Mark looked thankful for it anyways.

“Ah’ll see ye tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Ye be safe, too, then?”

Izzy wasn’t sure that Mark wouldn’t be the death of him.

+++

When Izzy got to the apartment, he was an hour late and still had to knock for fifteen minutes before someone answered the door. Well, someone clumsily making their way to it before answering.

“Sick and Rent-Boy residence,” He joked, “What’s your business?”

Izzy wasn’t exactly sure which boy this was until he remembered details mixed into the long and convoluted ramblerants that Mark went on. Tall, lanky, short hair. It had to be Spud. (Mark had called him Murphy once, and Izzy had asked who the fuck that was, and Mark explained but had looked at him like he was offended that Izzy wasn’t a mind reader.)

“Business is meeting Rent Boy’s friends, good fellow,” Izzy played into the joke. Spud gave a warm, goofy smile. He gave a salute to Izzy, who mirrored the action and walked into the flat as Spud stepped out of the way.

It was a little messy but cozy in an odd sort of way. Mark was on the couch, a black one with a blanket over it, with a belt tied around his upper arm, sleeping or riding a hit. Izzy didn’t feel like addressing the sick feeling that washed over him seeing Mark like that that was accompanied with feeling no way at all with seeing who he presumed was Sick Boy - Simon, he remembered - leaning back against the couch in a similar, if not worse (better?) state.

Tommy was nowhere to be seen, but the noise of Izzy’s conversation with Spud and being let in had roused Sick Boy first. He woke with a quiet groan and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, looking around the room and letting his eyes land on Izzy.

He didn’t say a word, just reached back and smacked Mark’s leg a few times. He sat up immediately, smacking Simon in the back of the head in return.

“Hey, cunt, yer fuckin’ boyfriend is here, aye?” Sick barked at him, smacking him again. Mark looked up and met eyes with Izzy, who just smiled. He tried not to glance down at the belt on Mark’s arm, to look at the needle in Sick Boy’s arm as he pulled it out and tossed it on the ground.

Mark got up, pushing past Simon as the final word and approached Izzy, holding his face and kissing him.

“Ye made it,” He seemed ecstatic, turning quickly to introduce him to the room officially, but the belt hit Izzy’s arm in the process. Izzy didn’t say anything, but Mark had already noticed and was silently making quick work getting it as far away from him, at least while Izzy was there, as possible. He looked at Izzy in silent apology and got an understanding nod in return.

He wasn’t angry or upset. He couldn’t find a reason beyond the normal spiel of reasons to be upset, and he couldn’t make the man’s choices for him. But damn him for letting himself grow attached to what he assumed would be a losing battle.

Tommy came in only a moment later, a mop of unwashed, blonde curls framing his face nicely. He looked younger than the others and Izzy remembered that the boy was only a year younger than he.

“This him, Rent?” He asked Mark, but Sick was the one to reply.

“Who else would it be turning up at the time Mark said looking exactly as he described, Tommy-boy?” Tommy bit a look at him, but it didn’t suit his face. It was like someone put angry eyebrows on a puppy. It made Izzy stifle a laugh.

Mark wrapped an arm over Izzy’s shoulders and jerked him close, making like he was going to dig his knuckles into his scalp, but instead just ruffling his hair. Izzy wriggled out of it and shoved him.

“This, boys, is Izzy. And Izzy, this is boys,” He pointed at each boy as he named them, “You’re now acquainted with Spud, Sick Boy, and Tommy.”

“Hi, boys,” Izzy offered, giving his usual almost tight-lipped grin. Some people thought his smile was uncomfortable, like it wasn’t a real smile. They’d be right, but it gave him something to think about every time his muscle memory kicked in and did it by instinct, even when he wasn’t uncomfortable.

Each one gave a smile or a single motion wave. Spud plopped down on the couch and Tommy sat in front of Sick boy, just for Mark to pull Izzy to sit on the couch with them.

“Someone turn on the fuckin’ telly,” Mark let Izzy have the corner and stepped onto the couch and settling right up next to him, lanky legs pulled up close.

Spud turned the TV on, let it start a tape in the player. He let it rewind, and it wasn’t long before a comfortable chatter started in the room. Izzy wasn’t very talkative at first unless directly brought into the conversation, which Mark attempted to do multiple times, but he didn’t really know what input to give.

Until Simon started in about Sean Connery. Izzy perked up at a familiar name and listened to Sick start reciting facts and opinions about the man that, by the reaction of the other men in the room, he’d obviously done this frequently.

The tape clicked and churned, situating itself in the player, something playing silently on the television, but Izzy took no sudden notice.

“Well, I saw the trailer for that movie of his comin’ soon. What was it? Dragonheart? I’m excited for it, my mom loves the man somethin’ awful; loved him as Bond. Way better than Brosnan, if you ask me,” Izzy rambled. Sick Boy looked dizzy with actual interaction in respect to his absolute favorite topic and smacked Izzy’s leg.

“See, boys? This is what am talkin’ about! Take a good fuckin’ look at the lad. Finally a good conversationalist for the likes of m-” He was cut off, tackled to the ground with a split-second face of panic. Izzy gasped and sat back, looking to Mark, who was jumping up to drag Tommy off of him with a laugh.

Izzy glanced at movement on the TV and covered his mouth, stifling a laugh at the situation, despite how uncomfortable he’d thought he’d be at suddenly seeing a real-life sex tape.

A real-life sex tape with Tommy fucking a girl Izzy’d never seen before, not that he would have, with only just meeting him, but the realization was amusing to him nonetheless.

He had a few close calls with the likes of Tommy's elbow, but Mark got Tommy off of Sick Boy, letting them dust themselves off.

“What seems tae be the problem here,” He asked, not at all hiding the amusement in his voice, grinning. He glanced at the television before either of the men could answer. 

“Ah. Here we are, did someone lose this?”

Mark was playing dumb. Izzy knew it, everyone in the room knew it. He suspected Mark was the culprit of whatever prank or situation this was, and the anger on Tommy’s face confirmed it.

“Liz broke up with us over this, Renton.”

Oh. Tommy leaned down and ejected the tape and snatched it from the player, staring at it for a second before storming out and leaving, the door slamming making it feel like the room was shaking out of place. Spud chased after him. Even though he hadn’t said much, Izzy got the feeling he wanted to do damage control and make sure Tommy was alright.

Simon and Mark laughed anyways, falling back into the places they were sitting, Mark sinking down and looking up at Izzy with big, sparkly eyes.

“Ah forgot we nicked it from him. Honest,” Mark admitted, hands up to refuse responsibility. Sick Boy glanced behind them at the two of them, nodding.

“His girlfriend broke up with him for losing their sex tape?” He asked, confused as to why it seemed so dramatic.

“Yeah, and for forgetting her birthday and going to a Iggy Pop concert the night of,” Mark laughed, “and, well. He took his first hit earlier this week because of it ah suppose.”

Sick Boy spoke, “Ye suppose? Mark, ye sold it tae him.”

“So? He begged me, ah didn’t make him.”

They argued back and forth for a moment, Izzy looking between them, an uneasy feeling in his stomach about it. He was starting to think Mark wasn’t a very good person, but he hoped that Tommy getting the tape back meant he’d get back together with the girl - Liz if he remembered correctly - and get clean.

“If he’s your friend, why would you-” Izzy cut himself off, changing his mind, not because he was scared of the answer, but because he found himself not entirely caring. He didn’t like that he didn’t care and that this almost-stranger was worth whatever mess he’d gotten himself into, but he doubted Mark was going to keep him around for long anyway, so he allowed himself this non-guilt and allowance of things he’d never approved of before.

Mark and Sick Boy were staring at him, he could feel it past the sense of him having zoned out into the line of thought.

“Well, that’s just it, innit? Ah did it _because_ he’s my friend. Who am ah to deprive him of the best thing I’ve ever felt in his time of need? Heroin’s got a great personality, love, and he was on the rebound.”

Izzy just took Mark’s right hand and picked at his chipped, red nail polish and slotted their fingers together.

“I think I understand.”

+++

Izzy went down to Alex’s flat that night, didn’t tell his best friend about what had happened. Well, he did, but he left out the part that he was falling in love with a junkie, that a junkie was falling in love with him. Alex seemed more suspicious than Izzy would have liked, even if the situation was deserving.

Alex was a few years younger than Izzy, leaving for UNI soon, leaving Izzy behind soon. It wasn’t fair to Izzy, but he’d never voice it. He’d rather die than get in the way of his best friend’s path in life.

“I think I’m gonna go back upstairs, Punk. Get some sleep, yeah?” He stood up and walked up behind where Alex was sitting and hugged him, kissing his cheek.

“Yeah, yeah, Honey. Worry about your own sleep schedule before you worry about mine,” Alex patted Izzy’s arm where it was resting over his collarbone. Izzy knocked his head against Alex’s gently, pulling away and leaving.

He didn’t visit his parents on the way up, he knew they were asleep and didn’t want to bother them, and he was thankful to skip out on it. He’d already lied to one person he cared about that day.

+++

Several weeks passed and Izzy spent more time in Mark and Simon’s flat than he’d planned on. He’d gotten to meet Begbie, who stared at him a little too long with a little too much suspicion than he’d like, but he’d eventually welcomed him to drink and shoot the shit with them. Once Tommy was clean again, Izzy got to meet Lizzy and Gail in one night, socializing with them like he was expected to.

With Alex at UNI and his parents’ work schedules, he had nowhere else to be but there. He even got used to seeing his newfound friends abuse heroin, his boyfriend with them.

He got used to seeing Mark dance with no music and hit the ground after shooting up, got used to seeing Mark shove needles into his arms and crawl up onto the couch just for him and Izzy to hold each other.

“Am gonna get clean again,” He mumbled against Izzy’s chest one day after the others had all passed out in other rooms, “I promise,” and he could feel the gentle vibration of his words through his shirt and binder. He massaged Mark’s scalp and kissed his forehead. Izzy got used to this too.

“I’ll be here when you do, Mark.”

“Love you too, Iz.”

Izzy tensed and blinked down at him, ready to question him, but the heartbeat against his stomach and the rolling of Mark’s eyes back and forth behind his eyelids told him it would be no use at all. He was glad he didn’t have to reply, but a sickening warmth spread through his chest and stomach, a bloom of a blush that wasn’t visible.

+++

It was only natural for him to introduce Mark to his parents (He’d met Mark’s, but they weren’t very talkative with him. He wasn’t sure if it was because they knew their son was a junkie, if they thought Izzy was also a junkie, or because their son was dating a man.), but he insisted on no talk of skag. He had to assure Mark that it wasn’t out of shame, of course it wasn’t, it was to prevent worry. He was close with his parents, and they were prone to worry. They had enough reason plenty of times throughout their lives, and it felt like he’d be burdening them with more.

Mark turned up to Izzy’s flat in a dress jacket that was too big for him and he didn’t have to question it to know that it belonged to Simon. Under the jacket was a baby blue button-up with a stain inside the collar that looked like dried blood. He grinned and made a show of extending his arms and doing a little spin, the fact that he was wearing jeans be damned, and Izzy pulled him into the flat and kissed his cheek.

Mark fanned his face and rolled his eyes back like he was more than flattered. Well, that was, before he saw what Izzy was wearing.

“What the fuck is this, love?”

Izzy crossed his arms over his chest.

“It’s a fucking dress, Mark. My parents are, uh. They know, they know that I’m a man. But I want today to go smoothly. I don’t want to deal with my own bullshit,” Izzy tried to explain, blinking as he watched Mark take the jacket off and start unbuttoning the shirt underneath it.

“Mark-”

Mark opened a drawer to Izzy’s dresser, going through the few shirts he kept that were at all effeminate. He chose a ruffly, baggy white blouse. It had long sleeves and little metal holes going up the sides, a pretty white ribbon lacing through them. He pulled it on and despite the fact that it was baggy on Izzy, it showed part of Mark’s stomach, reminding Izzy of the yellow shirt he wore so often.

“Perfect fit, lad, let’s go.”

“Mark, no.”

“Am goin’ like this or not at all. If they want a man in a dress, they’ll get two. Kind of,” He said, holding Izzy by the shoulders and feeling him shift back in forth in shoes he loathed to see on him. It felt alien to see him in something he knew made him uncomfortable, the same look on his face from the night they met, the one that made Mark avoid wanting to see Izzy’s naked body. He still hadn’t.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Rents.”

Izzy didn’t know how else to tell him what he was thinking, but Mark got the message.

“Yer idiot, though, aren’t ah?”

+++

Mark and Izzy knocked on his parent’s door like that, and Mark had convinced Izzy to at least wear his binder. It made the dress fall open where it was supposed to hug breasts, making Mark poke fun at him for it.

Later, Mark would say the look on Izzy’s father’s face made it worth it. He was amused by it, the more comfortable of the two parents with the fact that he was given a son. Not to say his mother wasn’t, it just seemed that she was more reserved on the matter, had opinions that Mark wanted to hear if only to understand.

James and Anne, as they’d introduced themselves. They were warm and playful, and their flat smelled like pine and cinnamon and baked apples. Mark found himself having an appetite for the first time in a while.

“I bought Isa- Izzy that shirt for her birthday, Mark,” Anne had remarked sweetly. Mark could tell she was just stuck in some kind of way but had no ill intent. A look flashed on her face when she realized what she’d said, having not slipped once but twice. She didn’t correct her mistake and Izzy didn’t either. He sat there and picked at the fresh coat of nail polish on his nails, right hand bare just as Mark suspected it would be.

“Aye, well ah thought it’d look good on me. He’s all the time saying ah could rummage through his drawers if I wanted,” Mark joked, expecting a scowl or even a raised voice from one or both parents, but instead got a shared look and snickers.

“I like him, lovey,” Anne said as if he wasn’t in the room anymore.

“I think he’s just fine, dear,” James had said. His warm laugh was loud enough to fill the corners of the room, deep and fatherly. Mark leaned back on the couch and turned towards Izzy.

“Ah like them, my love.” He’d said it loud enough for them to hear, earning a snort of a laugh from Anne and he knew where Izzy got it from.

“Well, I think they’re just fine as well, dearie,” Izzy replied with a kiss to the tip of his nose, nipping it just hard enough to get him to thump him in the forehead in retaliation.

James laughed again and said something quietly to Anne that Mark couldn’t make out. Izzy could hear, “looks happy,” and wondered which man he’d referred to.

+++

Mark had learned in one visit and one look through a photo album that Izzy was adopted, but only kind of. James wasn’t his birth father, but he was better than, much better than. Nobody elaborated on that and he didn’t push the issue.

Izzy went quiet through most of the conversation but didn’t sink himself into the couch. He hated the discussion of his childhood, hated that Mark’s eyes would slow and study pictures of him as a child, would catch on bruises on a little girl in a shitty trailer park.

_Damaged, trailer-trash goods._

Mark didn’t look at Izzy, didn’t want to make him more uncomfortable than he could feel he already was. He just squeezed his knee and left it there as an offer.

Izzy didn’t take it, but he relaxed a little anyways. At least he had that. As more time passed, Mark’s fingers were tapping and squeezing his knee where they lay, and he was bouncing his own leg. Instead of asking to leave, he excused himself to the toilet.

Izzy rubbed his back as he got up, letting him rush away. He felt bad for keeping him this long, putting him through the hell of itching for a hit, but the thought of feeling bad that his boyfriend wasn’t able to do drugs because he was preoccupied with meeting his parents felt silly. But the guilt remained.

“Do you love him?”

“Mom-”

“We can see it, Isa. Haven’t seen you like this in years, not since before-”

“I know, ma. Is it that obvious?” Izzy felt like a red spot on the couch, shrugging his shoulders in. He didn’t want to risk Mark listening in and his mother finishing the sentence. She nodded and so did James.

“And he treats you right?” It was a typical question, a normal question for a parent to ask their kid - their daughter because most parents didn’t ask their sons that question, they asked their daughters - and Izzy nodded. Of course, Mark treated him right. Izzy didn’t even mind the skag as much anymore, ignored the death warrant it would likely come with if Mark didn’t get clean again, but Mark went out of his way- No. It was just his way to treat Izzy right.

He thought Izzy deserved it. He truly did. And he came out of the bathroom with cold bitten cheeks and a grin, the front of the shirt wet against his chest where he’d splashed water on himself.

“I think it’s time we let you two go for the night, you think, love?” James asked Anne, who nodded. Izzy sighed and stood up, almost tripping on heels he wasn’t used to wearing. They were thinner, less stable than the boots he preferred only because they made him a good five inches taller.

Mark shook both of their hands, pulled into a hug by Anne, who didn’t seem to mind the water on his shirt, and if she did, she didn’t show it. James clapped Mark on the back hard enough that he tightened his smile and had to retain his composure. Who wouldn’t have to focus on balance when a 6’4 veteran just good-heartedly smacked you to the ground to express affection?

“It’s been a pleasure, really. Thank ye both for having me,” Mark said at the door, remembering his manners, “I’ll try not to let him break my heart so ye can keep seeing me around, aye?”

They both laughed and Izzy pushed Mark down the hall. He’d already said goodbye and Mark joking around was just nails in the coffin for his parents' affection. It was obvious to him they adored him, that much was true.

When he heard the door close, he checked behind him and stopped in his tracks.

“You should go home,” he started, already leaning down to unstrap his shoes.

“Aren’t you going tae change first?” Mark seemed confused like it wasn’t clear that Izzy was trying to rush him home for a hit. But he wanted him to come with him. It shouldn’t have made Izzy falter in another rush of warmth.

“Y- Yeah. Yeah, I’ll change first.”

Mark followed Izzy into his flat and fell back onto the bed, covering his face with the crook of his elbow. He had a feeling it was because of the light, not out of courtesy, but that was okay with Izzy. He turned the light off and undressed, kicking the dress away with no care.

He pulled his clothes on quickly, not wanting to take more time than he had to, boots coming on next.

“What did yer ma mean? When she said she hasn’t seen ye like this in years?”

Izzy felt the urge to break something in his room, and he let that feeling simmer.

“Hm? Oh, that? Well, I’m not exactly the happiest person you’ve ever met, am I?” He kept his tone light, too light to be at all believable. His voice even broke and he loathed himself for it. He resented that Mark had heard her.

“Ye don’t have to treat me like ah’m stupid, Iz. Was just a question,” Mark stated, voice level. Izzy felt bad immediately.

“We moved here because I was discharged from the military.” Mark sat up and furrowed his eyebrows.

“I was only in for a year and a half. And one of the older soldiers found out about my, er. My affinity towards being not-a-woman,” Izzy wrung his hands in front of him, finding that he was shaking but felt calmer than he expected admitting this out loud for the first time in- Well, since it had happened, “Long story short, he raped me and I had a miscarriage shortly after. So I collect a GI Bill and don’t work.”

Izzy felt like his skin was peeling off, like he was saying something not meant to be said out loud, but he’d seen the darkest part of Mark. It was only fair that he shared one of the worst parts of himself.

Mark didn’t say anything, but his face screwed up in a frown and he clenched his hands, looking down at them. Izzy could see them shaking. He didn’t know anything about that kind of experience, and over his empathy was just anger and frustration. He flitted through the information he was given, stomach turning when his imagination provided vivid imagery where Izzy had not. He took a deep breath.

“Can we go now?”

Mark looked up when he heard Izzy speak, who wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was squeezing his own hands together and looking to the side, lips tight like he wanted to cry. He did want to cry. But he didn’t.

When they got to Mark’s, Izzy watched him cook and shoot up and he watched his eyes flutter and his lips part like if Izzy were to check his boxers, he’d find the come that usually came hand-in-hand with a look of ecstasy of that caliber. He knew he wouldn’t though. Mark’s sex drive was apparently nill, which was just fine in his book. On a bad day, just the thought of sex made his stomach churn. On a good day, he cried himself to sleep after reaching climax by himself.

The flat was empty that day aside from them, and he knew the others were likely at Allison’s. Izzy had only been over there once and had decided to never go again after finding out a baby was involved in all of this. It broke his fucking heart. It didn’t seem fair to him. But he kept his mouth shut, decidedly not prodding at the situation, hoping for the best.

He crawled to the floor and pulled Mark close to him, who came willingly, hands running anywhere he could. It wasn’t sexual, it was purely sensory, a blank need that Izzy allowed. Mark’s fingers slipped up under the fabric of the overworn tee and squeezed gently at flesh that gave way with welcome.

“You’re kinda cute when you’re about to pass out, my love,” Izzy cooed, letting Mark fall against his chest and hug up to him.

“Ah know ye are, but what am ah?”

“You’re a literal child, Mark Renton,” made Mark giggle and nod against him, his breathing leveling out as he reached that place that Izzy wouldn’t be able to reach him at for a while. He made himself comfortable against the corner he’d backed them into and dozed against the wall.

He found himself feeling hopeful for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave a comment and a kudos! It's what we unpaid authors live off of!!
> 
> twitter: goregeouswill  
> ko-fi: dumbheathen


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mark insisted on flying back to the states with Izzy for the funeral. He didn’t look hurt when Izzy had snapped something about how he was a junkie that wouldn’t make the flight, he couldn’t look hurt with Izzy curled up like he was. He was swallowed whole by a sweater too many sizes too big for him, unwashed for days, and when Mark had asked him when it was last washed all he got was a pitiful look enough to tell him it was holding the scent of someone he couldn’t stand to wash away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I updated a few days back, but I want to stay on schedule for the rest of the chapters! Honestly, this chapter is angsty as a motherfucker, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. Nothing solidifies a relationship like trauma and bad decisions. Anyyyywaayyy, I hope you enjoy the chapter! Don't forget to leave a comment if you're feelin' freaky and a kudos if you don't want me to melodramatically drape myself on the kitchen table and wax poetic about how this movie saved my life.
> 
> Twitter: goregeouswill (message me and call me a twat xx)  
> Ko-fi: dumbheathen (buy me a coffee so the bags under my eyes are 15% more justified)

The hope left three months later.

With his mother.

It was a massive heart attack, something that ran in the family, but she made it. She made it to surgery and Izzy could feel relief wash over him in an emergency room. He sat next to his father and bobbed his foot against the ground nervously, just wanting to see her.

But he didn’t, and he never would again. Not when he saw the oh-so-dramatic run of several doctors and nurses down the hall, hoping against hope that they’d pass her room, but they didn’t. They go straight in and there’s some code being announced and Izzy is hiding his face in his father’s side. He hears him sob for the first time in years, concreting Izzy’s suspicions.

It didn’t take long for a doctor, a man who looked like his young body was carrying too many years, seen too many things, saved many lives but never enough. He had blood on his wrist, just a little, but that and a clipboard meant too many things.

He said he was sorry and that they could go in and see her if they wished. Izzy didn’t follow James into the room, he couldn’t. He refused to, even if it meant making his father do the worst and loneliest thing he’d ever had to do. Izzy wished he’d gone with her, away forever.

+++

Mark insisted on flying back to the states with Izzy for the funeral. He didn’t look hurt when Izzy had snapped something about how he was a junkie that wouldn’t make the flight, he couldn’t look hurt with Izzy curled up like he was. He was swallowed whole by a sweater too many sizes too big for him, unwashed for days, and when Mark had asked him when it was last washed all he got was a pitiful look enough to tell him it was holding the scent of someone he couldn’t stand to wash away.

+++

The flight was the longest and worst flight Izzy had ever been on, heading way to the longest and worst thing he’d ever been through. Mark was a nervous wreck halfway through, but a trip to the bathroom and two pills washed down later, he was considerably calmer, able to talk to Izzy quietly about anything that came to mind.

He wanted to heal him of this. But he couldn’t, so talking would do just fine. He never apologized for his or James’ loss, he thought it was a shite custom that never worked.

James talked to Mark on the flight more than Izzy did. Izzy didn’t want to talk. He didn’t think he could say anything without saying too much or too little, and it wasn’t worth the effort. He didn’t know if it’d ever be worth the effort again.

+++

Mark wished he hadn’t met Izzy’s brothers this way. They seemed like they would have been good company in the familial sense, like their parents. The younger brother, Tony, would only open his mouth to crack a joke here or there, trying his best to cheer up the people around him.

He didn’t know how to cope with loss. He’d never lost anyone before, not really. Scotty, Izzy’s older brother had. He was reserved, but his teeth were set like if even a single thing went wrong, he was going to snap.

Mark kept his arm around Izzy, mainly for comfort, but also so others would stop touching him, telling him they were sorry and that they knew she and her mother were close. Mark understood why, but he hated seeing him flinch, hated seeing him in a modest, black dress that looked more out of place than Anne in the casket at the front.

At least the weather was nice.

+++

Izzy had to excuse himself repeatedly, going to the bathroom and coming back with puffier eyes than before, irritated like he tried to rub and grind the sadness out of himself with the heels of his palms.

He came back after his final trip to the bathroom, or that’s what he told himself, to see Mark hugging his dad. They were both crying, and only one of them was silent about it, like he hadn’t expected to be brought to tears by the other one.

Izzy stopped in his tracks and chewed his lip, not really able to stop the next wave. He didn’t bother turning around and going back to the bathroom.

When James let Mark go fully, Mark saw Izzy and made his way to him without a second thought. He wasn’t actively crying anymore, but his cheeks were wet and cold against Izzy’s when he kissed him, letting Izzy cry into it, sob into it, just as long as he knew Mark was there.

+++

“I’m going back,” Izzy said to a quiet living room after three days of quiet rooms and quiet men and quiet mourning. The quiet was going to kill him.

Scotty and Tony had understood. They’d asked him to stay just a few more days, but he shook his head and that was that for them. James wasn’t so easily sated, and he figured he wouldn’t be.

He begged him to stay, thinking it’d be good for him to be with family. Izzy disagreed but kept it to himself. He wanted to think about anything but this and just get away. He begged Mark, too. Mark would only say that it was up to Izzy, that he’d stay if Izzy would stay, that maybe going home would help him. James argued that this was his home, but it hadn’t been home for years and everyone in the room knew it. It was hollower then more than ever, colors muted and collecting whispers and tears.

So Izzy and Mark repacked and were on a plane that night after dinner. Izzy finally crashed while they sat in a half empty plane, but Mark didn’t. It didn’t feel right not to watch him sleep, as if he would never sleep again if Mark didn’t ensure that nothing happened to wake him up. It was almost realistic; he hadn’t slept more than an hour each night in a week.

+++

Izzy had originally wanted to go back to Mark’s when the plane landed, but Mark insisted on waiting. He had enough pills swiped from his own mother to get him through a few hours. It was worth it anyway.

+++

Watching Mark stable himself with one hand on the wall to take his shoes off, Izzy realized Mark hadn’t slept on the plane at all. He didn’t mention it out loud.

He got up and made his way to the shower silently, leaving the door open, not as an invitation, but out of apathy. He couldn’t bring himself to care if Mark saw anymore, to care about hiding or feeling or being. But eyes never landed on his bare skin and he was almost disappointed.

The water was too hot, and he scrubbed with his soft loofah too hard, and he wished the water would fill the air around him and wash him down the drain.

Mark changed his clothes, not wanting to waste time in the shower away from Izzy when he got out, but at least wanting to feel a little fresher than stale airplane air and the smell of whatever identity the airport had with too many people that early in the morning.

His fresh clothes smelled like Izzy’s family’s home. It made Mark think about the funeral, and he bottled it up instead of facing it at that moment. It didn’t feel right that he allow himself the weakness of tears when Izzy was already barely holding on. He heard the shower turn off and didn’t glance into the bathroom when he heard a gentle footstep onto the tile.

Not too long after, drawers were gone through and a towel dropped and kicked away, Izzy was in bed facing away from Mark. He didn’t stay still long enough for Mark to ask a question, instead scooting back silently and nudging into place in Mark’s arms. He took him and let him slot against him like a little puzzle piece.

He felt smaller, somehow, as if he’d physically shrunk into his grief. It made Mark ache.

Izzy’s body apparently didn’t feel like the moment was complete without wracking a sob out, too quickly for him to cover it, but he turned his face into his arm anyways. Not his arm actually, but Mark’s. He let him cry into his sleeve, not knowing what else to do but let him.

Izzy wanted it out of him, wanted to cut the sadness out like it was a sickness instead of it being this invisible, destructive thing.

+++

With Izzy staying home and Mark staying with him (but constantly itching for another hit and tired of leaving him), the boys started coming ‘round Izzy’s flat. The first time they’d seen him wrapped up in himself, sunk into the bed, not bothering to care about presentation, they pretended not to notice that his frame was much smaller than his clothes normally let on, and shorter with no boots hidden under baggier jeans. 

They pretended not to notice that his body didn’t belong to them, but they did all pile onto the bed with him and Mark, a sloppy dogpile meant to comfort him.

They pretended not to notice the lack of a binder under frilly and pretty dresses and makeup that they’d never seen nor imagined him wearing (and he pretended it was normal for him to talk with a sweeter and lighter voice anytime he took part in a conversation, and he pretended that he was fine with dressing the way he was supposed to).

They’d cook the skag in the living room and shoot up in the hallway or the bathroom at first. They eventually just stuck to doing it in the living room, but one too many times waking up to the bitter smell of either drugs or vomit and the fact that some of his things had gone missing, he told them to either respect his living space or get the fuck out. Tommy looked ashamed with the others, even though he had no part in shooting up.

None of them left or stopped, but his things stopped disappearing and he could push the hurt of clothes his mother loved seeing him in were hawked for smack away and bottle it up.

+++

He woke up to them gone, all of them. It’d been a month and a half of this, or mourning in bed or cross-dressing - was it really cross-dressing if the dresses fit his curves perfectly? If he looked like a princess in the soft pink blushy makeup he’d taken to pairing with the sentimental dresses? - and he figured they were all tired of it. Tired of him. He didn’t blame them. Even his father hadn’t come back yet, and he understood, but.

But it still made his chest hurt.

He rolled himself out of bed and made himself get dressed, did his gentle and soft makeup without looking in the mirror because he couldn’t. He’d covered all the mirrors with Anne’s old shawls.

Mark had tried to cheer him up one night, taking one of the shawls and doing a wonderful impression of Stevie Nicks, giving a twirl and crawling onto the bed and doing his best to absolutely butcher Dreams. Izzy had laughed for the first time since he lost hope, but bubbles of laughter popped and dissolved into broken sobs into a worn hand-me-down pillowcase.

Izzy had stopped curling his hair, trimming it too, so it had amounted to a poofy, shaggy mess. It was soft, but it was too long and framed his face. He could feel it and didn’t need a mirror to tell him that. He sat down on his bed, considering just going back to sleep before he saw the note.

_‘Feel free to come round ours, we didn’t want to wake ye. Mark xx’_

Izzy snorted at the note, and folded it, putting it in his side table. He tapped his fingers against his knees, chewing his lip.

He didn’t respect or approve of his own thought process, falling into the acceptance of it like he had no choice but to grab several bills to take with him, decidedly going to Mark and Simon’s. He kept telling himself that, making excuse after excuse for himself even as he paid the cabbie and got out of the taxi.

He made his way up to the flat and knocked on the door, wrinkling the rolled-up bills in his hands in place of breaking his own fingers.

No answer.

He should have taken it as a sign and walked away, but hearing distant arguing made him enter the flat with no regard for respect or manners. There was nobody to be seen, but there was an almost gentle crashing behind a closed door and cursing.

“Goddamn it, ah said tae fuckin’ zip it up, not peel our fuckin’ skin off, Spud-”

“Am sorry, Si, ah’ve never fuckin’ done this, either.”

“Ah think if ye stopped whining, this would go a lot smoother and we’d be done by now.”

“Piss off, Tommy.”

“What was that?” Came last, when Izzy stepped on a creakier part of the floor. The door cracked open and Spud’s head peeked through, only for him to go wide-eyed and pull himself back in and lock the door.

Izzy couldn’t make out the rushed whispering between the others, but he was thoroughly confused without it. He was told to come around, here he is, and they were conspiring. He plopped himself down on the couch, smoothing out the skirt of the white dress and picking at the hem on it.

It was sloppy and done by hand by his mom, but he loved it. He blinked at himself in disbelief. It’d been the first time he’d thought about her and hadn’t been immediately emotionally debilitated or tied to his bed with invisible ropes of disinterest in staying alive.

His thoughts were cut short by Mark stumbling out of the room, seemingly shoved by someone else, arms immediately in the air to express the offense taken at the act.

“Ah wasn’t ready!”

“Who the fuck cares, we all look like slags anyways, Renton.”

Sick Boy, Spud, and Tommy all followed behind, and Mark whipped around and raised his arms out, grinning stupidly down at Izzy. Izzy scanned his eyes over each of them, bringing a hand to his mouth.

Each boy was wearing a dress stolen from Izzy and makeup to match. Tommy was wearing a yellow sundress, Sick Boy in a black slip and Spud in its sister piece, a longer version. Mark was wearing the only other white dress that Izzy owned, a comfortable, layered dress with long sleeves that came up short on Mark.

He took a final hit from his cigarette before dropping it in an almost forgotten ashtray.

“So?” Mark asked, the other three coming to his sides.

“What is this?” Izzy was confused, damn near speechless, and definitely on the verge of tears.

“Well, we thought ye could do with some company, and we don’t appreciate being accused of hocking yer things, love.”

Izzy stood up and stepped up to them, to Mark. He reached up for his face and pulled him down, not minding that red lipstick smeared across his own lips for the sake of the kiss.

“I fucking love you, Mark Renton.” Izzy let it come out with a sob, wiping his mouth off haphazardly and missing most of what smeared onto him. Mark’s lips stretched into that toothy grin that made him weak in the knees and Izzy laughed, wiping his eyes.

“Thanks. Thank you for this.” He spoke to the room, engulfed in hugs from everyone before being picked up bridal style. Mark said it was reserved for Prince’s only and Izzy wanted to smack him.

+++

Later in the day, Tommy had cleaned himself up and left, and Spud and Simon had changed, but not Mark. They left the room to cook up, and Mark made like he wanted to follow, but Izzy kept him back.

“I- I wanted to talk to you, if that’s okay,” Izzy had mumbled. Mark stayed behind and let him guide him to the couch. Izzy walked on it like Mark normally did, crossing his legs and reaching into the breast of his dress.

Money.

Mark stared at it for a long moment before looking back up at Izzy. His Izzy, his wonderful, kind, broken, rough around the edges Izzy.

“No.”

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘no.’?” Izzy crushed the bills in his fist and his face turned pink with embarrassment. It’d been easy for Tommy to do this, why the fuck couldn’t he?

“I mean, no. It wouldn’t be right. No, baby,” Mark shook his head and furrowed his brows like it hurt him to see Izzy asking for this.

“Mark- Mark, if you don’t do this for me, I’ll find someone who will, or something worse,” It was a fact, not a threat. A bottle of pills was a good enough substitute, skip the trust fall and hit the ground instead, “I trust you, I trust you to help me through this. If- If I do this, I’ll feel something, I’ll know how you feel when you do it.”

Mark stared at him, eyes brimmed with tears that spilled over without him having to blink.

“Please, help me, Mark,” Izzy begged, leaning up and chewing his lip, picking at one of the bills. His voice had broken, but it sounded so foreign recently that he wasn’t sure that he ever actually spoke. He felt like a puppet for despair, bleeding something pathetic onto Mark.

He didn’t reply. He stood up and left the room, and Izzy stood up, but didn’t know where to go. Follow him? Leave? He lost his focus, not hearing the conversation in the other room. He sunk to his knees where he stood, covering his face and hoping the pressure to his eyes would block the emotion, smear his mascara, make him even more unrecognizable. He didn’t hear Mark come back, but he did.

He did and he had brought everything he’d needed to help Izzy. He sunk down in front of him, knees knocking against his and making Izzy gasp and jerk with sudden touch - and surprise that Mark had come back.

“I’ll be here to catch you when you come down, aye?” Mark said slowly, reassuring himself more than Izzy. It broke his heart to do something he’d done to others and himself what had to have been hundreds of times. Odd.

He tied a belt around Izzy’s arm for him, and Izzy flexed his hand. It made several veins pop in his small hand and he imagined for a moment that it was a real man’s hand, a man that was born a man with hands a man would have and the veins that came naturally with the package for some men.

Mark watched him with a smile, a small one, not a happy one, but a smile nonetheless. Mark didn’t need to cook it, he’d taken care of it in the other room to have less to carry, to make the process shorter for Izzy, so two fresh syringes lay on the ground next to them as Mark tied a belt around his arm as well, flexing and slapping it.

“You’re doing mine, love, and am doing yers.” It wasn’t a question, and Izzy didn’t have a choice in it. He didn’t want to argue it, so he nodded and swallowed hard, taking one needle and letting Mark take the other.

Izzy put his arm out, shaky and taking a deep breath, watching Mark lick the needle to the tip before taking his arm and pushing the needle in. He whimpered at the pull of the plunger, grimacing at the initial feeling of the tug of himself into the barrel forefronting the injection.

And then he felt it. He let the syringe roll out of his hand and his back went lax where he knelt, hunching slightly and digging his fingers into Mark's dress covered thigh.

“Holy- Holy fuck, Mark. Mark…” Izzy had thought that Mark had been exaggerating when he’d described it as a thousand times better than the best orgasm you’d ever had. He hadn’t been.

“Is this what it’s like- like all the time?” He asked, voice somehow calm and wavery at once. He could almost feel Mark’s nod, but he definitely felt the placement of the syringe back into his hand.

“Bring me with, Iz,” Mark cooed, and Izzy made a little show of standing on his knees and uncapping the needle, licking up to the tip like Mark had and not once breaking eye contact. Not until he had to push the needle in. He was careful and gentle like Mark had been, not looking up again until he was pushing the plunger in, blood and heroin polluting hungry veins.

Mark moaned, really moaned, relaxing into where he knelt as well. Izzy dropped the needle and reached for Mark’s face instead, thumbing over his cheeks and wanting to breathe in those noises, keep them safe in his lungs.

He pushed his hands into Mark’s scalp, giving a genuine shudder at the feeling he’d grown used to but was now amplified. He got an idea and sat back just as Mark nuzzled his head into his hands, just about to push his hands into Izzy’s hair to share the feeling. He stood up and went to the bathroom, rummaging through drawers and ignoring Mark calling for him to come back and quit with the racket.

He found what he was looking for, thumbing through lengths and chose a blade that would give him just a little more than what Mark had. He went back to the living room and watched Mark sit back and pretend that he wasn’t attempting to stand and follow Izzy, instead watching him crouch at an outlet and making his way back to where he was kneeling in front of Mark.

“Help me with one more thing?”

+++

It didn’t look bad, but that wasn’t the point. Sick Boy stood over the couch where Mark and Izzy slept. They were still wearing dresses that may have well been matching, and Izzy’s head was shaved. There was a pile of hair in the middle of the floor next to the electric razor Mark used to shave his own head each month, and since Spud had gone back to his own flat to get ready to spend the day with Gail, Simon was left to wonder by himself whose fucking idea it was to shave the boy’s head.

He figured it had to be Izzy himself, following his greatest hits of “Self Destructive Crossdressing” and “Begging My Boyfriend To Get Me Hooked on Skag.” Simon felt bad for him, but he’d be sure to tell him when he woke up that the look suited him, since he and Mark were always up each other’s asses anyway, they might as well be twins.

He laughed at his own joke and started eggs and tatties in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, sweetheart! You made it to the end of the chapter!!
> 
> Here's your after reading checklist ;)
> 
> [ ] Drop me a kudos if you liked the chapter!  
> [ ] Leave a comment! Validate me with a single word, I am SO easy. Just try it.  
> [ ] Follow me on twitter ( @goregeouswill) and I will try to be more active on that hellsite.  
> [ ] Buy me a coffee ( ko-fi is @dumbheathen ) to sate the idiot inhabiting my body and excuse the fact that I sleep 3 hours a night.
> 
> But seriously! Do what you want! Love you! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Izzy pulled Mark down by his face, asked for the eye contact and for the touch of the stubble on his cheeks against his palms. He didn’t say anything, but he did kiss the direct middle of his forehead, and it felt like it was important. Of course it was._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a personal indulgence and also to any who care or are interested, I've made a [PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nn4pCc2XRyW3R8O0qYT1w) for the fic and may add to it, but currently, I see it as the OST of DNAB and even arranged it into something that resembles a coherent order that follows the story. 
> 
> This chapter is NSFW heavy, so if that isn't your scene, feel free to skip it! A summary will be at the end of the chapter so you don't miss anything!! <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter, it's certainly one I worked on for far too long, but enjoyed writing nonetheless. Who knew writing is such a good cope? Anyway, don't forget to leave a kudos and a comment if you enjoyed!! Thank you so much for your time!
> 
> Follow me on twitter ( @goregeouswill ) where I wax poetic about Mark Renton and Will Graham and occasionally attempt to interact with others.
> 
> Buy me a coffee? ( Ko-Fi is @dumbheathen)

Izzy woke up slowly, a little too sticky with sweat for his taste, but he summed it up to the fact that Mark was clinging to the smaller man like he was a plush animal. His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow, his throat aching with the action.

He reached his hand up to scrub through what he knew would be unwashed and messy hair but was met with none. He blinked and thought for a moment, letting himself shake the sleep off without moving.

His mother was dead, he did heroin, and he shaved his head. He found that he didn’t really mind the state of affairs. Of course, he minded the pit in his torso that had engulfed him for the last several weeks, the pit left by Anne’s passing, but it felt smaller now. Deeper, but less wide. He was going to gore himself open on vices, he thought, but he just couldn’t care as much as he should have. He hugged Mark closer and wrapped a leg over him, kissing his chest where the dress didn’t exactly cover.

Izzy laughed against him, rubbing his back.

“What’re ye laughin’ about, wee cunt?”

Izzy slapped his back and nipped at the skin against his lips.

“You, you and the guys, dressing up for me. It really made me feel better,” he admitted, shifting back to look at Mark. His eyes were still closed and Izzy counted the beauty marks on his face. Moles and blemishes on soft skin. He lingered on each one and only got to three before Mark spoke.

“Well, we thought it might be lonely being the only crossdresser, we love our boy in a dress,” he ran his hand over Izzy’s shaved head, only then opening his eyes. He grinned at it, letting his eyes wander down to Izzy’s.

“Hello there.”

“It doesn’t look bad?”

Izzy wasn’t one to normally get insecure about something physical, but he was having second thoughts. His mother loved his hair.

But his mother also hated narcotics.

“Ah think it makes ye look rugged, like me,” Mark winked and kissed his forehead

“Aw, you’re not rugged. You’re just my wee baby boy.” Izzy teased him, fighting not to grin when Mark gasped, all too dramatic to be real.

“Ah’m a rugged lad, sir, thank ye very fuckin’ much,” Mark got all huffy and thumped Izzy in the forehead, “Yer just mad ‘cause you’re a wee twink. You’re *my wee baby boy.”

Izzy gawked at him and shifted, face heating up. He scooted further down the couch, covering his face.

“M’not a twink, Mark,” Izzy mumbled as if that’s why he was at all bothered by it and not flustered over. Over the other thing. Mark pulled his hands from his face and kiss his pouty lips, giving several sweet, little pecks.

He ignored Izzy’s claim.

“Ye like that? Look at ye, all pink and sweet, all cause you’re my baby boy?”

Izzy nodded and tried to pull both sets of hands up to hide it again, but Mark wouldn’t let him.

“No more hiding.”

+++

Eventually, they got their asses up and padded into the kitchen, Izzy trailing after him and crossing his arms over his chest. It was cold in the flat, but he was sweating regardless. He couldn’t blame it on shared body heat now.

There was food on the stove, long-cold by then, but Mark made a plate for them to share anyway. Eggs and potatoes - he called them tatties, and even though Izzy knew it was a commonly used word for them there, he wanted to kiss the smile off his face. They ate mostly in silence, until Mark zoned out and Izzy threw a potato cube at his forehead.

He snapped out of it, but picked up a piece and threw it back, it bouncing off his cheek. Izzy looked offended, taking a small handful and returning the favor, only for Mark to stand up and dump the rest of their plate on him. Izzy jumped up and pushed Mark, glancing at the stove. The pan was still half full.

Mark’s eyes followed and he laughed, “Oh, oh no ye don’t.” He moved for them, but Izzy ducked under his arm and snatched the pan. He bit his lip and grinned, tilting his head.

“Alright, truce, love. Truce? Give us a truce and we’ll give ye a-”

Izzy backed up as he stepped forward, flinging the contents of the pan at him, cold potato cubes and yolk-y eggs hitting and smearing down Mark’s dress. They both gasped and Izzy dropped the pan just in time for Mark to look back up at him. He took off through the flat and Mark chased after him.

They ran on the couch, ducked through Simon’s room, through the kitchen again. Until Izzy tripped over his own feet. He stumbled and failed to catch himself, busting either his nose or his lip on the ground.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, rolling over onto his back and pulling his knees up, as if condensing himself would simmer the pain better. He held his face, feeling his eyes well up. It was his nose.

He shouldn’t have been laughing. At all. But the adrenaline and the tickle of a line of blood down his cheek and into his scalp was enough to trigger it. He did his best to wipe it all off with his arm just as he looked up at Mark, who looked like he was trying not to stare and decidedly was leaning forward to help him up.

He held his cheeks when he got to his feet, tilting Izzy’s head back and forth as the last of the giggles died down.

“Dinnae look broken, dear, just busted yourself up good.”

“Thank you, Dr. Renton.”

“Cheeky cunt.”

Izzy tasted blood in his teeth, swiping his tongue over it. He felt a familiar heat in his stomach, but it wasn’t really accompanied by guilt or disgust like it normally was. He didn’t exactly know what to do with that heat, and he knew it shouldn’t be hard. They’d slept together the night they met, but not again since.

It was never wanted or necessary. So why was it now? Izzy didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think of recent trauma as a reverse reset (who the fuck copes with death with sex and heroin?), so he reached for Mark’s hands that were still on his face.

“Do you. Do you think we could go back to my flat? You can bring- We can go to Swanney’s first, if you want,” He offered, as if it wasn’t as much for him as it was for Mark. Mark was a little taken aback that Izzy was asking to visit Swanney, but he didn’t focus on that.

“Well, we can do that here, ye ken? Si will probably be back soon as is, and-”

“I would just like some privacy, Mark, and maybe a shower, and-”

“My love, you can shower here, we don’t mind,” Mark wasn’t catching on, and of-fucking-course he wasn’t. His sex drive was almost always absent. Well, not always, there were times where Izzy had to say no or distract him with something else, and Mark always respected it, but Izzy didn’t know he’d have to spell it out for him.

“Mark, I-” He breathed in deeply and tapped his foot, squeezing Mark’s hands. He could feel his face warming up again and had a thought that it was the dumbest fucking bodily function to ever exist.

“I would like to spend time with you, privately, just the two of us for a few hours,” Izzy tried again, still not able to say the words, “Do you understand?”

Mark stared at him, face blank except for eyebrows furrowed in thought. It took him a long moment, maybe two, and Izzy just raised his eyebrows, not knowing if he needed to clarify. He hoped-

“Oh.”

There it was.

“Yeah. Yeah, we can go back to yers,” Mark was nodding and pulling his hands to himself. Izzy had the thought that maybe Mark’s drive wasn’t as severely damaged as he normally let on, that maybe he told a white lie to comfort Izzy, reassure him he wasn’t broken for also having a low drive. But he didn’t. He just would have preferred to not have one.

“Now?”

“Right now, lead the way,” Mark did a little shooing thing with his hands. Izzy snickered at the sight.

“You’re going to leave the house like that?” Mark had egg yolk and smeared, smushed potato bits on his borrowed dress that didn’t properly cover his chest.

“Are _ye_?” He asked in retort as if it was not only a stupid question but implying that Izzy also looked a mess. He looked down at his dress, not seeing any food particles or overt stains.

“What’s the matter with how I look?” Mark could kiss the stupid look off of his face, the absolute confusion painted on it with yesterday’s makeup and already-dried blood.

“Ah think ye look fuckin’ perfect, and so do ah. So, let’s go,” Mark grinned and held the sides of Izzy’s head, kissing his forehead and letting him walk away, still with a look of wary confusion.

Izzy led the way to the door and opened it for Mark, letting him through first and closing it behind him.

He hadn’t expected to run into Sick Boy on the way down the stairs, carrying a brown bag of what looked like food.

“Where ye aff tae, then?” Izzy stopped in his tracks and started up again, not caring enough to answer.

Mark yelled behind them, “Catch up with ye later, mate!”

+++

After a stop at Swanney’s, who didn’t comment on Izzy or Mark’s appearance or Izzy’s specific request that just so happened to be filled by the older man, it didn’t take them long to get to Izzy’s flat.

He had to stop Mark from cooking, not that he wasn’t itching for it already, but he felt something more urgent. Something the heroin polluting their veins would ruin and prevent. Izzy had asked for ecstasy, something he knew Mark had done before, but he never had. It was like a just-in-case that would most likely be used. He dropped the paper bag on the side table, not having to hold a hand out for Mark, to stop him from going directly for the empty syringe - only one, Izzy took notice, but didn’t mind - and the bag of grey-brown heaven.

Before they’d gotten to his flat, while they were still in the taxi, Izzy held the half bar up, breaking mostly-accurate sized tablets off and handing one to him, keeping one for himself.

“I thought it’d help, y’know,” he had explained in Mark’s ear in the back of the taxi, “Not like opiods, no doubt, but-”

“Ye deh have tae ask me twice, love,” Mark gave the smile he normally gave when he knew Izzy had more than one reason for doing something and didn’t know how to talk about it. When he wanted to put out whatever lit the pain behind his eyes.

They had taken them at the same time.

But now, they were standing in a quiet, dim flat with lots of color but little-to-no-life. Izzy didn’t know really when it was supposed to kick in, take effect, but he figured that it had been around half an hour when he felt his heartbeat pick up. He had already nervously paced, getting two glasses of water and putting them on the side table, because the only actual clear thoughts he had were to make sure they had something to drink because he had a friend in high school who did ecstasy and his mouth got really dr-

Mark stopped Izzy, hands on his shoulders, and where soft fingers lay against his mostly-bare shoulders came tiny goosebumps. Izzy looked up at him and brought his hands up to mirror him, could see that his eyes were blown out, and he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the spacey look Mark got about him when he was high.

Izzy was torn, and Mark could see a split decision arguing behind his eyes. He dragged his fingers down Mark’s forearms, pulling his hands off of his shoulders and kissing the palms each before turning Mark around.

“M’gonna strip you, Mark,” he kissed across his shoulder blade and the dip of skin that married the bone, counting imperfections with his lips. He could just barely feel the pull of skin and bone, all gentle and slow, as Mark nodded his head. 

Goosebumps rose on his skin.

Izzy ran his hands up Mark’s sides, slowly enough that Mark did a little shimmy through the fabric, but he didn’t complain. He took his time unzipping the back, almost too long, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere to be. The dress had a hard time falling on its own, and Mark was turning around asking for help for the sake of the attention that came with it before Izzy could ask him to.

He obliged and the fabric pooled on the ground, exposing most of Mark’s too-skinny body. Izzy still wasn’t one to talk, grief had starved him of an appetite, and-

He couldn’t think of that now, all he could. All he wanted to think of was Mark. He stepped closer, ducking before Mark could kiss him, instead kissing his chest and ribs. He dragged his teeth over bones, letting his canines dig in gently until a whimper - not a hiss - came from above him. Izzy let himself kneel, pulling the briefs down and letting them hit the ground, kissing Mark’s stomach and hip, sucking and biting a mark in the freckled dip there.

Mark stepped back, searching for purchase and nearly knocking a glass of water over as he finally found the bed. Izzy followed clumsily, pushing Mark back to give him room to leave another claim on his hips. He was experimenting with his own needs, but more than anything, he appreciated that Mark was more-or-less verbal at this point. Among other things.

Izzy closed his eyes, wrapping a hand around Mark’s half-hard cock and tugged gently, taking the swallowed noise and the slight, nudging spread of legs with a stride of confidence, leaning forward and licking the tip. He dug his tongue into the slit, feeling, along with hearing, the little gasp that joined the jerk of his cock and the blurt of precum against Izzy’s tongue. It was bitter, not unbearable, but bitter just the same. He ignored the taste and sucked more of him into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks and grabbing one of the hands moving to his head.

Mark wasn’t rough, he was just as eager, pulling him closer and not doing much to stifle the groans that were being coaxed out of him. The younger man gagged around him, but didn’t panic, didn’t pull away. He swallowed around him and moaned at Mark’s attempts to touch any showing skin. He felt like he was made of a few hundred comfortable bon-fires. It didn’t even touch the way heroin had made him feel, how empty and complete and amazing it’d made him feel.

He pulled off to breathe, only to be pulled up quickly into a sloppy kiss. He slipped and almost lost his balance, struggling to find it again with Mark’s hands searching for a zipper. Just as his hand landed on it, Izzy pulled away, out of muscle memory instead of actual fear. Nonetheless, Mark put his hands up to let him know he’d ceased. Izzy felt a pang of guilt and bit his lip, shaking his head.

He stepped back and turned around, unzipping the dress on his own and looking over his shoulder at Mark. He felt silly, putting on a show, but he also didn’t. He felt fine, confident even, as the white fabric joined Mark’s borrowed dress on the floor. He kicked it to the side, but Mark’s eyes stayed on him, on his face, on the curves and lines of flesh he’d never been allowed to see, on scars that weren’t there. Izzy pushed his underwear down, having to wiggle to get them to fall without him bending over. He kicked those too.

He stepped over the discarded garments, turning to face Mark, allowing him the briefest of full-body glimpses, before straddling him. He didn’t get a chance to push him to his back, an arm around his waist pulling him with the body underneath him, situating them both on the bed with a comfortable laugh.

“Ah deh think ye should sit close tae the edge, we’ve seen ye trip over nothing before,” Mark poked at Izzy’s ribcage, something Izzy wasn’t used to seeing as prominent as it was, making him gasp and smack at the hand.

“I’m graceful and elegant, fucker.”

Mark thumbed over the red spot left by the tips of his finger, and Izzy pushed into it, making the very-fitting, thought-through (and by thinking through it, he really meant it was all he could think about) decision to roll his hips down, earning a soft buck of Mark’s below him. The heat was almost overwhelming, the need to be closer, and he didn’t care about digging a condom out, nor did he care to take the next step. Neither did Mark, really, who was squeezing soft hips and letting bones massage the palms of his hands, guiding Izzy into a slow grind.

“If I’m being honest, I’ve always been touch starved, always been so sensitive that it was almost shameful,” he admitted, leaning down and rolling his hips to accentuate whispers to Mark and an empty room, “I remember in high school, got drunk and decided to come out of my comfort zone at some bullshit party, came in my jeans against the dude’s thigh and just bolted from the house.”

He laughed at himself, verbalizing the memory for the first time. Mark laughed with him, keeping his hips dragged flush against him. Izzy was wet, wetter and sooner than Mark would have expected, but he liked to think it was due to how starved for touch the younger man was, not the drugs.

“In high school, still creaming your jeans like a virgin?” Mark searched his face and kissed at his lips, feeling the nod.

“Well, I was. Technically,” Izzy added, using his teeth to bite his lower lip, tug it and let it pop back into place. He felt icy hot in his gut, like an easy tension was waiting to rise, simmering against Mark’s stomach where they pressed together. In the pause that took place, Mark lifted Izzy’s hips, his question not making it past his kissed red lips before Izzy was sinking down, hands on Mark’s chest.

“O-Oh…” Izzy shuddered, a chill running through his limbs at the new connection, the new stimulation.

“Technically?”

“Hm?” Izzy rolled his hips slowly, letting himself adjust. Feelings he expected never came, except the one that joined the realization in what Mark was asking, “I’ll tell you later, poor timing.” They laughed and Mark rolled them over, kissing him over his lips, over the smile on his cheeks, giving a harsher thrust. Izzy gasped and gripped Mark’s arm, expecting him to have picked up the pace, but the slow and patient roll of hips returned.

“Woulda killed tae be that confused lad with the prettiest boy in my lap, sensitive virgin of a mess runnin’ out on me and making me daydream for the rest of my wee lil life,” Mark cooed, nosing under Izzy’s jaw, in no particular rush or hurry. He went several minutes just buried inside of him, barely moving and feeling his heartbeat squeeze around his cock, the tensing of muscles that got tighter the longer he waited, no matter how wet the man beneath him was.

Izzy pushed his hips down, not getting much in return for his efforts. He grunted and huffed, pulling Mark’s head up.

“Move, please.”

It came out breathier, needier than Izzy would have normally allowed, something that could be akin to the tone that paired with begging if you squinted at it just right.

“Cozy right here, lad, sorry,” Mark was breathing heavy against him, shaking softly with the effort to not move. Izzy tried to wiggle and pull the man closer with his legs and even used his fingers to flick him in the forehead. Mark wiggled his hips right back, giving Izzy barely enough to make him whimper.

Izzy searched for his hand, finding it planted on his waist, squeezing and kneading the flesh there just to have some tangible hold on his partner. He put his focus on kissing each fingertip, sucking each one into his mouth to nip and bite and part with just as soon. Kisses trailed to the palm of his hand, and he pushed his hand into them, into the bites that were leaving white-pink indentations in the skin.

Izzy felt impatient, leaving one last bite before dropping the hand. He let it land on his chest, fingers damply grazing the skin of his collarbone when he realized with a warm jolt in his gut what he wanted.

Mark began to retract his hand, only for it to be grabbed again, shyer this time, more questioning in his movements. Izzy placed the hand on his throat, wrapping his fingers over Mark’s and lightly cutting off his own blood flow with Mark’s hand.

The older man looked up, mouth agape while studying him. It didn’t take him long to experimentally squeeze the arteries himself, the throbbing pressure just under his fingertips catching his attention. He added pressure, slowly and watching Izzy’s face as he did so, jerking his hips forward and getting comfortable with his hand around his partner’s throat.

A whine got caught in Izzy’s throat, and another, as Mark’s thrusts picked up again, rougher this time. He gripped Mark’s wrist, hips coming off the bed to meet his.

“You’ll stop me if it hurts, right, baby boy? Not gonna let me bruise this pretty throat up?” The words were unexpected coming from Mark, like they didn’t fit his mouth, a mock of a sexual sadism one could ease into, but Izzy guessed no sex drive and trama paired together really meant there was just another way to get to know each other. Biblically, featuring a curious exploration of kink, was a sense that he could get behind. Or under.

He shook his head, biting his lip and giving a half-effort smile before sinking back into the feelings, almost overwhelmed with them. Mark pushed his hand, squeezing a little more, thrusting a little harder, leaning down to kiss Izzy’s lips. He wasn’t really the kind to get off on pain, well, giving pain either. The sting of a needle was different, it wasn’t pain, but choking a person was. It was actual pain, or it was supposed to be.

The sweet whimper that buried itself under Mark’s hand, vibrating in his throat, and the slack, blissful look across a blush-pink face told Mark otherwise. The tensing of Izzy’s legs around him, of his sex around his cock, of his hand around his wrist told him that this was not pain, this was far from pain, and maybe it helped him understand his boyfriend.

He didn’t let up with his hips, just worked into Izzy like getting them both off would keep them alive, like he could get as close as humanly possible if he tried hard enough. He relieved pressure to Izzy’s throat, but not his arteries, seeing an immediate decline in the sure-as-shit shade of purple that had made its way to the face below him. Mark kissed his open mouth, getting eager kisses back, hands that had stilled against Mark squeezing and digging into him again like he’d breathed life back into him with a kiss.

Izzy pulled Mark closer than before when he came, everything feeling impossibly tight as well as finally relaxed, a contradiction that he didn’t mind too much. He minded just as much when Mark rolled his hips forward and filled Izzy with come, too hot and too filling, but any impending reaction was cut off by the deep groan in his ear, echoing off the pillow.

Izzy breathed deep and heavy, letting Mark slump onto him and give him his weight, snuggling up to the smaller man below him. He felt clearer headed, light even with the man on top of him. He didn’t immediately want to scrub his skin raw, so he silently thanked the long-lasting drug, when he wasn’t exactly sure he’d feel that way if he were sober, but he didn’t want to think about it.

He couldn’t think about it [not feeling guilt or resentment after sex due to taking ecstasy, not with the itch he’d hoped to ignore for a little longer made its return, slowly but surely making his skin crawl. He rubbed up Mark’s back, feeling the cooling sweat against his fingers, not feeling the goosebumps that rose in the wake of them, but knowing they were there; he could feel Mark’s skin twitch for the touches.

Izzy found that the familiar feeling that came with resituating under Mark, the feeling of spilling out and a chill from the air hitting wetness was one he didn’t like. But he couldn’t make himself move, the weight was so comforting - better than any messy stack of blankets he’d grown used to - and he didn’t want to face the very real reality that was awaiting them both, didn’t want to face how much he wanted it because he’d finally found something that was his and it was just borrowed and it was going to consume him.

“You asleep, sweetie?” He kissed Mark’s shoulder and felt his head shake against him.

“Did ye do somethin’ tae your bed? Much comfier, and it smells like my boyfriend post-coitus,” He mumbled against Izzy, earning a slap to his head. Mark bit his shoulder in return, and Izzy shoved him away, laughing to cover up the very confusing but easily ignored jolt of pleasure that came with the minor pain.

By the time he sat up, Mark whacked him with a pillow, watching Izzy hit the bed. He crawled over him and pinned him down, both of them laughing.

“Ah would have put ye in a chokehold, but ah think that would still make the wee lad the winner here, aye?” Mark sounded cocky, Izzy going pink.

“You liked it just as much as I did, so maybe you’d be doing us both a favor,” Izzy teased, snapping his teeth playfully at Mark, who pulled back and grinned. He stared at the smaller man’s throat, could already see the beginnings of light bruises on the pale skin. It made a hunger rumble through him.

“We left a bruise on ye, darlin’,” Mark cooed, and Izzy immediately wanted to touch it, or see it, but a jerk of his hands told him Mark wasn’t letting him up. He writhed under him, huffing a sigh to pretend he was more irritated about the predicament than he actually was.

“Leave another one on us if you’re so keen about it, then,” Izzy dared, grinning up at Mark, calling his bluff. With his newly short-cropped hair, dried blood up in the hairline to the side, and that shit-eating grin, Mark could confidently say he understood why some people thought couples would start to look like each other. Mark stared at him and rolled his eyes, thinking he must have been bluffing, but with the drug in both of their systems, it was more likely that that was just his way of asking for more, for more pain or intimacy or both.

“How should ah do it, hm? Squeeze the life out of yer wee body, watch yer pretty face go purple again?”

Mark had decided to tease, to take advantage of the unspoken and new vulnerability being shared between them. Izzy squirmed and took in a slow, deep breath, eyes widening just enough that Mark would notice.

“Think you should tear it out, swallow me whole, baby,” Izzy huffed, and he would later excuse the morbidity as confidence brought on by the ecstasy. It wasn’t. Mark didn't mind, either.

Mark glanced at his neck, and he bared it for him, arching his head back and keeping his grin. He leaned down, tightening his grip on pale wrists instinctively as he did, inhaling deep. He scented him, holding back a smile that would surely bring about his own laughter and possibly ruin the moment, but as he bared his teeth and dragged them over the skin of Izzy’s throat, growling like some cheesy monster in a film, Izzy gasped.

It was quiet, like he was surprised, scared even, but Mark gave another growl, snarling softly against a barely-there Adam’s apple before nipping at the stretched flesh once more. Izzy jerked his wrists against his hands and whimpered, but he kept his neck bared. Mark kisses a small, red streak left behind by the drag of his teeth. He kissed along a thudding pulse, and he had the distant thought that he could bite into it and Izzy would probably let him, but he didn’t bite down there, he opened and closed his mouth against the dip at the bottom of his lover’s throat, lips catching like they wanted to stay and worship the spots Mark missed. Izzy was swallowing any of his tiny noises, but the upside of paying so much attention to his throat was that Mark could feel and taste every single one of them for what they were: need.

Mark didn’t tease him for much longer, teeth digging into either side of Izzy’s esophagus, digging soft then almost soft then too hard, but Izzy made a choked off noise akin to a needy whimper and Mark released his grip and found another place, closer to his shoulder, biting down harder and feeling his pulse beneath his teeth, so he bit down harder and tasted iron.

When Mark pulled away, both he and Izzy were panting, the smallest dots of blood forming in two or three of the tooth-shaped divots in Izzy’s neck.

“How- How do we look, my dear?” He asked, swallowing hard and wriggling one of his hands free, touching one of the sensitive, definitely-gonna-bruise spots and _pressing_ it. He chewed his lip and waited for an answer. Mark stared at him, sitting up where he was straddling his boyfriend.

“Ah think you look too good all debauched if I’m being completely honest.”

“Do I look debauched, Mark?”

“You," he paused, leaning down to kiss his forehead, "look like sin itself, a sight of ravished purity.”

+++

In the shower, the one Izzy insisted on them taking (either together or alone, but it was a necessity), Mark smeared his thumb across Izzy’s cheek and gently scrubbed dried blood from that morning off, tended the smaller, guiltier wounds with soft, wet kisses under the spray.

Izzy pulled Mark down by his face, asked for the eye contact and for the touch of the stubble on his cheeks against his palms. He didn’t say anything, but he did kiss the direct middle of his forehead, and it felt like it was important. Of course it was.

+++

Mark had wanted to cook up as soon as they were out of the shower and dried off, but Izzy stared at the brown bag and thought hard.

“Still feel the ecstasy, don’t want to risk an overdose.” With such a small dose of ecstasy and the time that’d passed, it was highly unlikely.

“Aye, ye got a head on ye, huh?” Mark didn’t question it. He also didn't mention the sweat already making an appearance, nor the migraine he could sense would be showing up soon.

And it was left at that for a couple more hours. The sun would be ready to set soon and Izzy could feel the ecstasy almost completely worn off, so he stood up and took their empty glasses to the kitchen. Mark watched him go from where he sat on the floor going through cassettes with shitty handwriting and records with torn and worn sleeves.

From where he sat, he could see a stack of notebooks under the bed, and if he didn’t have something holding his attention and the owner of the notebooks in the next room, he would have given them a proper thumb through. But Ziggy Stardust and Bob Marley records and ‘My Mix’ volumes would have to satiate his curiosity to know more about Izzy. It was fine that he didn’t know much more than was necessary. He knew enough to love him and be loved in return, so he couldn’t complain.

Of the newest cassettes, there was one labeled with only a heart and no little card with the tracklist as Izzy had organized the rest, so Mark picked that one up and put it into the ugly, scratched up boombox, rewinding the tape back to the beginning.

He spent half of the first song, something he couldn’t put his finger on, something closer to metal than Mark preferred, cooking up. He did it on the floor, even put down a dirty towel out of respect - and because Izzy had snapped on all of them the first time one of them burned the carpet.

Izzy could hear music begin in the bedroom, and he didn’t care much. As he saw it, the cassettes and vinyl belonged to Mark as much as they did him. He leaned against the counter, the kitchen dark around him, and he wanted more than anything to go back to his room, be with Mark, fill his veins with relief and filth. So he bottled his self-resentment and his hesitancy and returned to his room just as the song ended, eyes landing on Mark.

He was leaned against the headboard comfortably, in his borrowed underwear - Izzy was getting used to seeing Mark in his clothes - legs spread to give room to Izzy, with the blanket pulled back and a needle in his hand.

Izzy looked for two belts, but only found one and a spare shoelace, so he crawled into the bed with them, feeling his tank top ride up his stomach as he settled between Mark’s legs, back against his chest. Everything seemed easier with the decision, everything matching the pace of the staticky music. He handed the belt to Mark and tied the shoelace around his own arm, making a makeshift knot he could tighten with a pull. He tapped his arm and Mark leaned forward, kissing his shoulder and watching him with loving intent.

He didn’t watch Mark lick the needle, couldn’t in that position, but he found himself wishing he had. He held his arm out for him, letting him push the needle in at this awkward angle, pull then push until it had done its job.

Izzy took in a shuddering breath, feeling heavier and lighter all at once, relaxing against Mark. He was thankful Mark was there to catch him. He could feel the moment that Mark felt it, felt something he was used to feeling and chased every single day, something he gave almost unwillingly to Izzy and shared with him because it was the only way he could take his pain away.

They stayed like that, letting the music fill all the spaces around them as heroin filled all the spaces inside of them. It was a true euphoria, one Izzy didn’t want to ruin, but after an hour of lying against Mark in near-silence, he felt the need to speak.

“You wanna know something funny, Rents?” His mouth was dry, and Mark only hummed an intrigued noise behind him. He’d spent about ninety-percent of the high so far kissing across freckled shoulders and laying his head against them when his lips felt numb.

“I think you took my virginity.”

No response for several beats.

A new song began, quiet and melancholy, unmatched to the laugh that rumbled through Mark’s, and subsequently Izzy’s, chest.

“Ye think so? How do ye figure?” His voice was sleepy like he was cozy but more or less aware.

“Well, you’re the first person I ever. You know. Like, the only one I ever slept with on purpose. Willingly, or whatever.” Izzy suddenly felt insecure with the admission, hadn’t anticipated the line of questioning he could feel churning in the gears in Mark’s head.

“Ah thought you were an adult already when-”

“Yeah, that time,” Izzy swallowed the panic in his throat, wondered if it was easy because of the tar in his veins or the trust he had for the man behind him. “I mean, by way of getting my cherry popped, I think I’ve had that box checked since before I can remember,” Mark tensed behind him, arms that were snaked around Izzy’s waist feeling unsure of whether to move to comfort or retreat, “I kind of like. I hit the jackpot, I guess. Was forced to hang out with this girl down the hall, some bullshit about a girl’s night. Then, when I tried to leave, you followed me, and you didn’t see a woman, you saw a boy in a dress, well, you did after I corrected you, but I honestly thought you only cared cause you wanted to get laid.” Izzy spoke slowly, carefully like he was trying to avoid slurring.

“I really just had a ‘fuck it’ type of moment, decided I could get it over with if I was tipsy. But you were still here when I came out of the bathroom, and I was so scared to get used to you being around, and now I don’t think I’d try to get rid of you if it’d save my life.”

Mark hugged his arms around Izzy’s waist tightly, nuzzled his head up to his and pressed his forehead to the back of his head.

“It probably would, funnily enough. Got the wee cunt addicted to smack because he needed help, didn’t we?” There wasn’t guilt or anger in Mark’s voice. Hurt, maybe, but hurt that he didn’t know what to do with, so he embraced it with the euphoric rise and fall of the high in his blood.

“Can’t really blame you, I wanted this, just for a while. You say you’re gonna get clean all the time, maybe I’ll kick it when you do, a built-in support system for a built-in addiction. Let me lie to myself, at least.”

“Ye know the funeral? How yer dad hugged me?” Izzy didn’t want to think about the funeral, didn’t want to taste acrid disappointment rise in his throat at the thought of Anne knowing about this new vice, this thing he knew would likely kill him someday, but he’d die happy if it felt like this, felt better than losing her, so he swallowed it and nodded.

“He said he knew you’d come home with me, that ah needed tae like, protect you. You’re a grown man, but he’d known you since you were a wee kid, and it’d kill him if something happened tae you. And ah said ah would, but here we are, hm?” Izzy turned his head to look at Mark, eyebrows furrowed. He couldn’t find the words to reply, so he didn’t.

He kissed Mark and pulled away just before he could kiss back, pressing his forehead against his. He stood up, not bothering to resituate the riding up of his underwear along with his tank top, and he rewound the tape, stop-playing it repeatedly to find the exact spot. He glanced at Mark, studied the way his hands rested on his pulled-up, curious knees, the way his head tilted when he was focused or confused. How much did a sketch-pad cost? Was it worth it? There were better places for your money to be spent.

He found the song he was looking for and padded his way back to the bed as it started, something ethereal and intimate, verging on the oh-so-dramatic feeling of true melancholy, and held out a hand for Mark.

“Dance with me?”

Five minutes felt like forever in a gentle sway in place, not really dancing, but they were pressed together nonetheless, moving together, guiding each other as if they just appreciated the touch and didn’t care about leading, stealing little kisses to the crown of one’s skull while the other dusts them over a heartbeat and more beauty marks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Izzy wakes up to a shaved head and cold food on the counter. He and Mark share it, play a silly game of tag, and Izzy busts his nose on the floor. Soon after, they supply themselves with hits and head to Izzy's, where the two are sexually and emotionally intimate, as well as experimental. They become painfully vulnerable with one another while shooting up like a fucked up bedtime routine before dancing together bedside to Track 5 of the special playlist yours truly created. Some semblance of happiness is found in the moments they share.
> 
> Twitter: @goregeouswill  
> Ko-Fi: @dumbheathen
> 
> Don't forget to comment and kudos!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He made Izzy promise to go back on his medication, promise to actually try to get clean. Said they were staying several days just to make sure. He would have been offended if he had the right to._
> 
> _Hell, he was offended and he didn’t have the right to be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Make sure you check the most recent tags to make sure you're okay with the content! Yes, the overdose will be in much greater detail in a later chapter, and I hate giving spoilers, but I only say that as a warning/out of respect.
> 
> Wow. 50+ hits is HONESTLY more than I ever thought this fic would get, so thank you so much if you've read this and continue to read it!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter!!! Leave a comment and a kudos if you can, as it's very appreciated!!! Thank you so much for your time!!
> 
> Harass me on twitter: goregeouswill  
> Gib me monies on ko-fi: dumbheathen

In two months, Izzy was drifting through addiction, seemingly as uncaring about it as the others, but only because he was always with them. He couldn’t remember a single time that he polluted his veins with that shit alone. He avoided the truth of the fact that he couldn’t be trusted to use alone. Mark had never asked why Izzy avoided doing it alone because he figured it was just for the practicality of it all.

The pull-out couch in Izzy’s living room became Simon and Spud’s domain, as they were there just as much as at Allison’s or Mark and Simon’s. Izzy grew used to all but actually living with the others as he grew used to his stomach shrinking and ribs protruding. He grew used to never being alone like he grew used to the bags under his eyes and shaving his head each month. It was nice to have company, it was nice to have Mark.

They promised each other weekly they would get clean together. On the way to pick up, after being chased by security guards and cashiers when they’d take advantage of their five-finger discount, in the shower, over breakfast, while watching each other lick the needle. The words didn’t sound like words anymore after a while, said too many times, and feeling foreign as they fell off Izzy’s tongue. But he promised and promised and promised.

He stared at Mark after the man had sent the other two out of the room after their hits. He could hear the couch creak and squeak as the mattress was pulled out, followed by the dull thump of two bodies onto it and the television switching on. Izzy smiled.

He crawled to the edge of the bed and stood on his knees, cupping both sides of Mark’s face, the belt he’d preemptively secured around his own arm swaying and hitting his elbow where it hung. He counted freckles absent-mindedly while Mark just stared at him. There was a sort of shine in Mark’s eyes no matter where the light source was, like that soul of his was always peeking out, keeping an eye on things.

Izzy pecked his lips several times, offering little kisses across them, and Mark took them, kept them safe, brought his hands up to mirror Izzy.

“Where’s the needle, baby?” He asked, knowing where it was but wanting to be a pest. Izzy rolled his eyes and slid off the bed, taking the fresh - if it could really be considered fresh filled with such a heinous thing - needle from his dresser-top, a disgusting, full spoon resting dangerously next to it and a lit candle.

Mark held his hands out and let Izzy crawl back onto the bed, taking the needle and his arm. Izzy used his free hand to hold Mark’s head, fingers itching gently at the nape of his neck.

_I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Please, please, please._

Tongue against needle, needle into vein. Izzy gripped the side of Mark’s neck gently, gasping and sighing before he let himself fall back onto the bed to the tune of some song over the staticky radio. He was far below the pillow but made no move to scoot back towards it, instead letting his legs hang off the bed and watching Mark shove the same needle in his own abused vein and shudder out a soft sigh.

Izzy lifted his hands up, holding them open in silent question and Mark kneeled on the bed, knees straddling Izzy’s hips as he leaned down, hands already more steady, sliding up Izzy’s sides and under him. He hugged up close to the smaller man, letting himself be guided to a sweet kiss by Izzy’s hands on his cheeks.

Izzy’s hands found the hem of Mark’s shirt, pushing it up and over his arms and head and tossing it to the floor, squeezing his thin hips and letting his thumbs rest in the divots there. While Mark pushed Izzy’s tee up, kissing the corners of his mouth, Izzy unbuttoned Mark’s jeans, wanting to be close and warm and-

A throat cleared, and Izzy jerked his eyes to his cracked open bedroom door, like Alex was waiting to be invited in and had clearly seen the display. Izzy’s face flushed and he fixed his clothes, sliding off the bed and almost hitting the floor, dizzy with his own attempt to open the door.

“Alex! What are you doing home?” Izzy let him into the room and Mark made no move to stand, laying back on the bed and lighting a cigarette just to give his mouth something to do. Alex blinked at Izzy.

“Holiday, for Christmas. I left you a voicemail last night,” He explained, only for Izzy to make a face. He caught him staring at everything, his hair, his tired eyes and cheeks, down down down to the belt on his arm and sweet track marks of his inner elbow. Was it really December? Izzy suddenly felt insecure, shame making his stomach drop and his arms cross, “but I see you were busy.”

“Yeah- Yeah, been busy.”

Izzy didn’t know what to do. He’d gone from wanting to embrace his best friend after not having seen him in what felt like years, to wanting to hide under the bed.

“It was Anne, wasn’t it.” Alex spoke words that should have been a question, but came out tight-lipped. Izzy didn’t look him in the eye, staring at the curls in his hair instead.

“That’s not fair, Alex.”

“What is? You choosing suicide the long way ‘round?” Alex had never been angry with him before, and he didn’t know what to do, how to respond. He picked at his chewed back, chipped polish covered nails.

“You wouldn’t fucking understand, so don’t sit here and lecture me,” Mark rolled to his side on the bed and watched them, half-listening and enjoying his high. Izzy envied him his neutrality.

“What’s the point, Iz? What the fuck would she say?”

Izzy pushed him by his shoulders and his back hit the doorframe. He stared at the taller man, teeth grit and eyes welled up, “Watch your fucking mouth at me. You have-”

“No right? I have no right? What do you want me to do? Come home, see my best friend killing himself and smile about it? While his junkie boyfriend and his friends encourage it and apparently just fucking live here?” Alex didn’t raise his voice, but he stepped forward again.

“We dinnae fuckin’ live here, mate, you try driving high,” Simon called from the living room. Simon didn’t drive, nor did he own a vehicle.

“Shut the fuck up, Sick, I swear to god it’s not the time,” Izzy snapped and got no reply. Mark laughed where he lay and put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the side table. It wasn’t the time, but any other time Mark used it, Izzy would smile. He’d stolen it, but it was pretty and suited Mark’s needs just fine.

Izzy stared at Alex and tried to steady his jaw, hated how it trembled in confrontation. His face and ears burned.

“Do what you like. If you already know my reason, you know you’re not gonna convince me until I’m ready, so stick around to see if I keep my promise of getting clean or go, but don’t fucking put me down. I don’t need it, not from you,” Izzy balled his fists by his side, nails digging into the soft flesh there as he looked away and down at Mark, who was reaching for his hand to hold, comfort he offered at the break of Izzy’s voice. Alex softened and sighed, clearing his throat again.

“I’m sorry. I just. You get where I’m coming from, right?”

Izzy nodded and inhaled deep, picking at his jeans with his free hand. Mark scratched into Izzy’s palm gently, tickling and soothing.

“Then, can we go out tonight? I came over to ask if you were free,” And with that Izzy was confused. Was it really that easy? He’d just dropped it? Just like that? But he nodded anyway and squeezed Mark’s hand as he sat up.

Izzy didn’t want to ask, but Alex hadn’t even gotten to meet Mark before all of the mess and he thought it was unfair to gauge his opinion on him based on only this. It didn’t feel fair at all that now Mark would only be seen as the junkie boyfriend with junkie friends who got his boyfriend hooked on junk. Dizzy, dizzy Izzy sighed before he opened his mouth to speak.

“Yeah, that’d be fine, mate,” Alex said, and Izzy glanced at him. He was looking at Mark, who’d apparently asked before Izzy could, while he was in his head. Maybe Mark was in Izzy’s head, too. It was a nice thought, a nice feeling.

“We can- We can put clothes on to go out, head out in a few. Give us a minute, yeah?” Izzy asked, nodding to the doorway to ask for privacy. Alex gave him a softer look than before, like he wanted to talk but nothing he hadn’t already said in so many words, so he turned and walked out. Izzy didn’t like making him wait or wait with two strangers, but he didn’t dwell on it.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and his boots, loose and easy to pull over the heels of his feet and go. His socks didn’t match, and that would have been fine if they weren’t two different lengths. He suspected one was Mark’s. He glanced at Mark, watching him button his jeans back and put his shirt back on. Izzy pulled his jacket on and realized Mark hadn’t brought one, so he gave him a denim one that had gone unworn for months. Mark gave a cheesy grin and put his hands on his hips, turning and looking over his shoulder.

“Ah sense an ulterior motive, my love,” he remarked, striking another pose. He’d been doing the cheeky cunt act every time Izzy offered him clothing, no matter how practical, ever since he’d admitted that he felt possessive over the man or even felt softer for the man seeing him in his clothes.

“My ulterior motive is not wanting a popsicle boyfriend, Mark.”

“Why not? You’d find a way tae thaw me out for sure, papa-” Izzy swung a soft pillow at his head, but Mark ducked and grabbed him by his hips and slung him over his shoulder, stopping by the side table on the way to the door to allow the kicking and cussing younger man to grab his wallet as they left.

“Put me down, Mark.”

“Negative, comrade, ye attempted tae strike-”

Izzy bit down on Mark’s waist firmly, hard enough that Mark stumbled and made to put Izzy down, thumping him on the tip of the nose as payment. Izzy raised his arm to smack Mark. Mark flinched and cowered as dramatically as possible. Izzy would have continued the joke if he hadn’t heard Alex laugh at one of the other two making a remark about mom and dad were fighting again, followed by Mark getting called mom. He sent a bird in their general direction.

+++

The bar was half full by the time the group had arrived, their normal choice, a place where they were all technically regulars. All except Alex. And all of them being regulars meant Izzy was not at all surprised that Begbie and Tommy were in the pool corner, already a few beers in.

+++

After Izzy’s first few beers, all three cheered to Alex coming home and to friends and happiness, he got up to play pool. He’d never taken up a challenge with Francis because neither of them had the patience for each other, but with warm limbs and dizzy eyes, he got up and twisted that blue chalk on a cue before getting to the game. Alex got up and excused himself to the bathroom.

+++

Around game four, two wins for Izzy going on three by the looks of their current game, he was almost finished with his sixth beer and becoming increasingly impatient with Begbie’s mouth. He’d called him just about everything under the sun and then some, and Izzy was itching.

Somehow, Begbie potted his last two balls in one shot and successfully potted the 8 ball after them, winning the game. He pointed the tip of his cue at Izzy and laughed, voice slurring out a, “Take that ye fuckin’ junkie dobber.”

Izzy furrowed his eyebrows, a chill running down his spine at the bite. Being called an idiot was one thing, but a junkie? A fucking junkie?

“Say that again, Francis, and-”

“And you’ll what?” Izzy didn’t need much more of a reason past that to grab the end of the pool cue and jerk him forward, swing a sloppy right hook to Begbie’s jaw and try to duck out of the way before he could react. His fist landed, but ducking didn’t work out and he damn near knocked his own head off with the edge of the pool table, giving Begbie enough time to pop him in the cheekbone.

Izzy ignored the jumping up of their friends, pulling Begbie down with him as he fell to the floor. He turned and straddled the man, swinging at his face to the sides past where he held his hands to block the hits. Francis landed two to Izzy’s ribs, only for Izzy to pop him in the nose harshly, feeling a crack against his knuckles right as he was jerked back and dragged off of him. He barely made it to his feet before he was led to the door on unbalanced feet, and as the pace quickened, they were soon running down the street.

Izzy felt laughter bubbling up and he glanced at his captor - savior? whoever got him the fuck out of that mess - and slowed down, relieved that it was Mark. Of all of them, it was most likely to be Mark, anyways, but Izzy was still thankful for that fact of life.

+++

The soberness of running and the adrenaline rush of winning a fight ran out quick, and the two men stumbled through Izzy’s door an hour later, Mark flopping onto the bed and chuckling, patting his own stomach, the warm buzz of being drunk settling into him and his itch.

Izzy watched him, swaying, and took off his shoes and jacket, ready to flop down next to him when the landline started ringing. He sighed and didn’t even realize there was the option to ignore the call and go to sleep anyways, so he walked back to the living area and answered the phone.

“‘Llo?” He hummed, holding the phone unsteadily between his shoulder and his ear, waiting for the other voice.

“Izzy?” James. Dad. Izzy froze and gasped happily, laughing a slurred out thing of a laugh.

“Dad? Oh, it’s good to hear from you,” He sighed, half sitting on the stool at the bar, missing it and almost hitting the ground.

“You too, kiddo. Listen, you’ve never lied to me, right?”

“Mmyup.” It came easier after the first few times, after the numbness went away.

“So if I told you Alex called me, you wouldn’t know why?”

Izzy sat up, and for a short moment he felt like he’d just woken up, hadn’t had even a sip of beer that night.

“He called you?” Izzy didn’t need to answer the question, the quiver in his already wrecked voice being enough of an answer as it was.

“Yeah, he uh. He voiced his concern, and said he was worried about you. You wanna talk about it, kiddo? I won’t be an-”

Izzy cut him off, having to avoid the vulnerability of it. He hadn’t needed it in a while and his alcohol soaked brain gave him permission this once, “Everything’s fine, pops. In fact, I’m gonna go get some sle-eep cause I’m a lil fucked up right - excuse me - right now. So, you have a good night, and yeah. Love you.”

He was sure at least half of what he said was coherent, and that would have to be enough for James, as he was a smart man, Izzy reasoned with himself.

He hung up as soon as he remembered to, James buzzing off words Izzy wasn’t focused enough to understand. He made his way back to his room, stomach turning once, twice, three times before settling again. He stared at the needle on the side table and slid his jeans off.  
He stared at Mark for a long time, and his fuzzy, fuzzy heart just stayed the same. It didn’t break, and there was nothing tragic about loving Mark Renton. At the end of the day, he was happy, even with his own shortcomings as a person.

He didn’t know how long it took him, but he eventually succeeded in cooking up for himself, filling a needle and smacking Mark’s foot, trying to wake him up out of the courtesy of sharing, but he barely responded. Izzy tied his own arm off and flexed and squeezed his hand until his favorite vein peeked up over the limit of his skin.

He smacked his arm, if only to hear the noise, and sunk down to his knees, sinking the needle in and giving himself what he needed most. He sat there for a moment, shuddering out a noise before something felt wrong. Or really good. He felt like he was sinking into the floor, vision going black right around the time that he felt back and knocked his skull against the protruding corner of his bathroom.

+++

Izzy woke up to bright lights and urgent voices before passing out again.

+++

He could hear hushed voices around him, someone was angry. He couldn’t pry his eyes open, but his skull and every other bone in his body was sore, bone deep and hard to ignore, but Izzy didn’t have to try too hard cause he was out again before he could clear his throat.

+++

Izzy opened his eyes fully, finally, and lifted a heavy arm to scrub sleep from his crusty eyes. He swallowed a whine in his dry and aching throat when a needle pulled at his hand. The noise got the attention of James, who was apparently sitting next to Spud in the bedside chairs.

“Dad?”

“Hey, kiddo.”

Izzy didn’t want to face the talk he knew was coming, the one of disappointment and lecturing.

“We overdosed, huh?” He asked, laying his head back on the pillow. He didn’t remember much. He must have really fucked up. James nodded and sighed.

“I know what you’re gonna say, and I know you’re not gonna believe me when I say I’m gonna get clean,” Izzy started, looking away from James and staring at the curtain. He sighed and picked at the blanket, “I just. It got so hard. It was so hard to feel-”

“I started smoking again.”

Izzy gasped and stared at his father. James and Anne had quit smoking together when Izzy was a teen. He suddenly realized that that was nowhere near as bad as what Izzy had done, but the sad grin on James’ face was enough to let Izzy ignore his burning ears.

“She’d tell us to suck it the fuck up, wouldn’t she?” He asked his son. Izzy laughed and nodded, running a hand over his scalp, appreciating the familiarity of it.

“I’m not angry at you for what you did, but for hiding it from me like I ever gave you a reason to think I wouldn’t understand,” Izzy mimicked, allowing a southern drawl to work its way too easily into his voice, changing pitch. James softened.

“You remind me so much of her, Iz. Even now, she’d be so proud of you,” James said, and the younger man looked away from him again. It was silent for too long after, and Izzy was uncomfortable with it. He thought about what else there was to say while upholding his own avoidance of the more serious topics to be moved onto. There wasn’t much.

Spud woke up after Izzy snapped in his face and huffed his name several times, James eventually knocking his foot against Spud’s. He woke with a gasp and a start, looking around before landing on Izzy. He grinned and started talking quicker than Izzy could handle, which he seemed to catch onto before Izzy even spoke.

“So, like, you’ve been out fer a while, like a day, and- and Mark is back at yer place, cleaning up likesay. Said ye blew chunks. He said something about getting clean, but he’s gotten clean be-”

“When can I leave?” Izzy wanted out, as soon as possible, and he wanted to go home. His whole body was sore, like he was a breathing bruise.

“Well, now that you’re awake-” Izzy sat up and searched for the little button he could use to call the nurse, pressing the button once before doing so several times in his impatience.

“Iz, you’re not going back to that apartment, I already told Mark that you’re-”

“I love you, I do, but I’m not going home. I’m going back to my apartment, getting my shit together on my terms or not at all.”

Izzy tried to speak with authority, but it came out pathetic. He always had respect for his parents, for his father, but his father knew that Izzy got more than his looks from his mother; he got her stubbornness as well. If he wanted to get clean, he was doing it where and when he wanted. He just so happened to want it right then, after one more hit, in his flat with his boyfriend.

James stared at him and sighed, resigning to watch him get unhooked from his IV and reminded different sources he could reach to lead to recovery. Spud and James left the room and gave Izzy privacy to dress himself. There was blood on his shirt and he wondered for a moment if when he OD’d his nose had dramatically bled. Until he remembered Begbie underneath him, taking punches like nobody's business.

He smiled to himself and zipped his boots up before meeting them in the hallway. He told his dad about the fight, Spud filling in the bits he couldn’t remember, and providing the detail that Mark was cheering Izzy on until Begbie pulled out his switchblade, which is why Mark dragged him away and out.

Izzy felt like those cheesy chick-flicks where everything was lovely even though the world was shit.

+++

Spud stayed behind at the hospital, catching a different taxi to go to Simon’s, likely, or even Allison’s, and Izzy wanted to follow what was promised in either of destination but wanted to see Mark more than he wanted to see a needle. He’d almost died, he could very well have actually died, just like that. Gone forever.

It was a weird thing to think about, but he didn’t dwell on it. He had too many things on his mind: the ache in his body, his brothers apparently waiting back in his father’s old flat (most likely packing and ready to convince Izzy to come with), Mark in his - their? Mark was at his more than he was his own - flat cleaning?

He focused instead on making his way up the stairs. Second floor, flat in the back, on the left. It was muscle memory. Overshooting his own flat, he heard more than one voice inside, and he wanted to go in, go to sleep, anything but deal with anything at all. Maybe even breathe, he thought. The cold tense boot print of anxiety in his gut was too much, he considered making himself throw up just to make it go away, but he shook the thought off when he saw his brothers.

He was scooped up by Scott immediately and he hugged him instead of fighting it like he normally did. Instinct kicked in and he wanted to bite him, but he just scrubbed his hand over his hair.

Tony was ready to hug him when he was put down, a quieter and more brief act, summed up with a pat on the back of Izzy’s jacket. It felt bigger and heavier than Izzy was used to, but that’s what happens when you lose weight due to general junkie-age.

The thought made his stomach twist.

“Did you talk to Dad?” Scott asked. Izzy nodded and shrugged, James leaving the room. The air tasted like disappointment.

“You’re fucking staying? After-”

Izzy cut Tony off and shook his head.

“Don’t lecture me, just. Just don’t. I don’t need it, and you don’t need to waste your breath,” Izzy tried. Every word felt like a lie drenched in his own voice, “I’m getting clean. ASAP. Point blank period. I’m not ready to die-”

“What about Mark?”

“What about him?”

“Is he gonna stay clean?” Scott didn’t ask what he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask if he doesn’t stay clean, will you leave him. Izzy knew Mark would get clean, he felt it, and he recalled that it was his idea to get clean, according to their good friend Spud, so why did the possibility of having to leave him bring such a heavy dread to his gut? He pushed that down as well.

“We’re both getting clean. You should see us work, we define teamwork. Two men on a fuckin’ mission, we. Gonna,” Izzy thought for a moment, dug through the haze of a recent memory where Mark went on some fucking rant having to do with choosing, “we’re gonna choose life and all the shit with it.”

Tony snorted. He thought it was cheesy, and he opened his mouth to call Izzy a faggot, but Scott cut him off with his own question.

“So, was the hair your idea or his?”

“Don’t I look rugged, Scotty?” Izzy ran a hand over his short hair and held the openings of his jacket, striking a pose like some generic action hero. His brothers laughed and he couldn’t see any of the staple “this is my little sister dressed as a man asking us to pretend she’s a man because she’s too sensitive” across their faces. It was nice. Kind of surreal, but nice nonetheless.

+++

Izzy walked down the hallway again, this time by himself. James had mercy on him after it was obvious he didn’t have much more to say in whatever conversation his brothers were caught up in, and asked him to talk privately. He made Izzy promise to go back on his medication, promise to actually try to get clean. Said they were staying several days just to make sure. He would have been offended if he had the right to.

Hell, he was offended and he didn’t have the right to be.

He knocked on the door to his own flat, once, twice, three times and lifting his fist to knock again before it was opened. Izzy was met with Mark in front of him, wearing a shitty cooking apron and rubber gloves. It smelled like chemicals.

He was jerked into the room and against Mark, pulled into a hug that almost brought both men to the ground.

“Oh, Izzy. Izzy, Izzy, fuck. Am sorry we weren’t there to see you wake up but- ah needed to clean up and get things ready,” Mark explained, his voice urgent, and Izzy glanced around for only a moment to find the source of the other voice he’d heard an hour before. Mark grabbed his face and made him look him in the eyes, “We know you hate being bossed, love, but like it or not, we’re getting clean. Good and clean, end of story. Ah already talked to James, and my ass is on the line here. Did you know how scary he is? Did you? He’ll kill us, love.”

Izzy laughed at the speech, letting him ramble on. He smiled and hummed, looking over all the little details of Mark’s face.

“I want to.”

“You- Excuse me?”

“I want us to get clean. We’ll be addiction buddies and clean buddies,” Izzy joked, trying to make light of the situation. He’d expected Mark to do so, but that seemed to not be the case. He’d never seen Mark upset, not in a way that’d surprise him.

“I mean it, Iz. I already went shopping and for. For the next week, we aren’t leaving this room and we’re taking no visitors. Sick Boy method.”

Mark always spoke so highly of the method, talked about getting clean so often that Izzy knew the Sick Boy method like the back of his hand and this was his first ove- his only and last overdose. If his father had heard the method, he’d just laugh and ask what happens when it doesn’t work.

The answer to that is you go clubbing, meet a tranny, fall in love, and start taking heroin again. Obviously.

“You went shopping? With what-”

“You had a £50 note and a tenner in your wallet, and Si bummed us a twenty,” Mark explained, as if him taking money from him without his knowledge or permission was at all alright. It was, but still. A few months back, Izzy would have been upset with Mark for assuming truthfully that it’d be okay, been angry at himself for allowing it, but what was the point in thinking about that? He wasn’t that person anymore, he didn’t know if he’d ever be that person again. If he’d ever want to be.

Izzy looked past Mark’s arm, looking at the stacks of cans and magazines on the counter, the rest likely put away. He walked around him and thumbed through one of the porno mags, snorting his amusement before putting it down and shooting a look at Mark. He scratched the back of his neck, like he’d already been unsure of the purchase to begin with. Izzy just smiled and laughed to himself.

“I don’t care, I really don’t. Just don’t expect me to get off to them,” He assured, more laughter in his voice despite the ache in his arms and legs getting worse. He was blatantly ignoring the increasing unease in his gut, the familiar unsure feeling that he’d grown used to years before, “Got over my girl phase in high school.”

The joke made Mark snort, and Izzy really looked at him for the first time since entering the apartment. They were mirroring each other, not on purpose, but for the same reason. Hands up holding their arms, rubbing gently like they were cold or simply thinking. They weren’t.

Izzy knew what came next. He glanced down at the boards on the floor leaning against the wall. Mark followed his eyes and turned his body in suit.

“Oh- Well, well, ah.” Mark didn’t know how to explain the obvious, so he crossed his arms, “We’re getting boarded up in here whether you like it or not, love.”

Izzy raised an eyebrow at him and chewed his lip, toeing the ground, as if he was going to argue and had been shut down.

“Is that an order, sir?”

Mark’s cheeks got pink and he shifted on his feet, decidedly standing his ground.

“Aye, it’s an order, lad. And ye best follow it, or that’s a smack on the ass fer ye,” He wagged his finger at Izzy and the younger man stepped forward, taking Mark’s shirt collar in his fists, giving big eyes.

“Well, you don’t need to wait for me to be disobedient for that, dear.”

Izzy kissed the tip of his nose and bent down, digging his fingers into the bucket of nails, grabbing the hammer and a wooden board. He didn’t look at Mark making a face at him, like he was left high and dry. He pushed the board against the doorframe, glancing at Mark just in case there was anything left to do before they were locked in, but a shake of the head and 12 nails driven into the frame later, they were in for good.

It did not feel comforting. He thought it would, but it didn’t. It just felt bad. He looked at Mark. _Not all bad_ , he reminded himself and sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter!! Leave a comment and a kudos if you could be so kind!! It gives me validation and strokes my sexy little ego.
> 
> Send me dm's on twt about Ewan McGregor and how unfair it is that you can't hold his hand: goregeouswill  
> Donate to the cause of me trying my best to start a career writing and writing this in my free time: (Kofi) dumbheathen


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _By the fourth day, Izzy was sure he’d never think the word heroin again without tasting bile in his throat. See, he knew withdrawals and getting clean would be strenuous, objectively he knew this and had accepted it without asking for guidance from his boyfriend, who had gone through this before. But he sure as fucking hell hadn’t offered Izzy guidance either._
> 
> _At least, that’s how Izzy reasoned with his anger. He was worlds more agitated than Mark was, but Mark had enough anxiety for the both of them and then some. It wasn’t really a good match, even with the weed. He’d not expected to see him this anxious, this close to the verge of tears._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Vague sexual content at the end of the chapter and canon typical grossness throughout the chapter. Beware brief, detailed description of overdosing. A week-long chapter covering the timeline of Mark and Izzy getting clean together.
> 
> I really hope this chapter is enjoyed, as I'm actually kinda proud of it. It was also way too fun to write, at times. I am really sorry about the late upload, but my excuse is that I had the bone-deep morbs and cannot control it

“Who was in here? Earlier, I mean,” Izzy asked late that night, looking up from Mark’s freshly washed feet, two toes painted with red polish. Personally, he was proud of himself. He hated feet, loathed them, and here he was. He’d even washed the limbs himself, giving himself some sort of distraction.

“Hm?” Mark stopped bouncing his free leg for a few seconds as he thought, continuing a moment later, “Oh, Alex. He came tae chew our ass fer letting ye overdose.”

He explained it so casually, all the while Izzy stared up at him. He’d not talked to Alex since before the hospital. He pushed the thought down, deciding to call Alex later, try to make it up to him or explain himself. Stand up for Mark.

“You didn’t let me overdose, Mark.” Izzy continued painting his boyfriend’s toenails, ignoring every temptation to tickle him. What the fuck was the point in painting them if he was going to be the reason they looked slaggy?

When Mark didn’t answer, Izzy looked up at him, watched him chew on his already-bitten-down nails.

“Mark?”

“Hm.”

“I mean it. I put that needle in my arm, I was upset and drunk and didn’t pay attention. None of that is on you,” Izzy tried, putting the bottle down and reaching for the hand with its thumb hidden passed chapped lips. He kissed the wet fingernail and held his hand to his face.

“You wouldn’t blame yourself if Simon or Spud overdosed, you’d shoot the shit and get right back to it a few days later. You locked us in my flat with food and buckets even though I have a fuckin’ toilet, Mark. Now, shut the fuck up blaming yourself when I gave you no choice to begin with,” He stood on his knees, leaning up and kissing Mark’s lips gently before pulling away.

“Be still my heart, lad, ye always know just what to say to get the heart racin’.” Izzy made a face and pushed Mark’s head away from him, settling back on the ground and picking up the bottle. It was half full, Mark had used it so many times that it might as well have been his at that point. Maybe it was, actually.

Izzy finished his toes and stood up to change the record, the last one spinning aimlessly after running out of sound to push into the fuzzy silence of the room.

+++

Day two went smoothly, according to Mark. Neither of them had really slept the night before. Both had used the bucket assigned to, well, shit, with either of them in the bathroom at any given time.

Izzy found that having no choice but to experience withdrawal induced diarrhea in full view of your romantic partner is probably the most intimate and shame-bonding experience a couple can have. The eye contact should have been horrendous, the smell in the flat at that exact moment definitely was, but with Izzy’s hands tangled in his own t-shirt in an attempt to not claw his own knees and the white bucket rim cutting into his ass and thighs, he glanced up at Mark, who was leaned over his knees, looking rather haunted.

The laughter that followed did nothing but upset both men’s stomachs further, but Izzy felt it was worth it, the noise of it boisterous and thundering. He wondered if a neighbor was awoken by it, and how they would complain about it to a loved one later. The neighbor would never know the reason, and this only gave Izzy more reason to lock the memory away as something close to special even though the current state of things was gagging if he breathed through his nose.

Cat-naps were taken as frequently as possible on that, but the ache was getting to be too much. The panic attacks were worse, mainly because he’d had two, but helping Mark through his own seemed to be what was too much for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to help, he’d had enough of his own over the years that of course he’d know how to help, but he hadn’t expected it. If you asked him why he didn’t expect it, he wouldn’t be able to answer. He held Mark against his chest by his back and rubbed his chest, whispering to him things to distract him, telling him to breathe, telling him to close his eyes, asking him to do tiny, little grounding exercises.

Mark fell asleep shortly after his panic attack, and Izzy held him there for the half-hour he stayed asleep before he was up and in the bathroom. Izzy took the time to go to the kitchen, crack open a can of tomato soup for the two to try to share, but as soon as he saw the food and heard his stomach respond, he cracked open a second can. The seconds of silence and microwave buzzy-fuzzy-don’t-look-too-close-or-you’ll-get-cancer noises were enough of a lack of distraction.

Izzy had held off asking for a valium thinking it’d make it all easier if he muscled through it, but he was unsure if Mark had taken any either (they hadn’t really left each other’s sides, and he hadn’t even seen a pill bottle) and his muscles were killing themselves in their riot for drugs. He carried the bowls of warm - not hot, even though he’d nuked them for a few minutes each. He’d have to look into getting a new one, likely. - soup into the bedroom, sighing and setting them down before spraying the room down with some generic and fruity , half-empty air spray. He sprayed Mark down the torso where he laid on the bed and gave him a pointed look before taking a seat next to him against the wall. Izzy sipped at his soup, spoon abandoned.

“So. So, ehm,” he began, clearing his throat, only getting a little hum in response, “did you remember the valium? Or did-”

“Oh!” Mark got up and left the room. He could hear him walking around quickly, then stop, then continue, like he’d forgotten what he was doing or he was thinking. He ran back into the room, face split open wide in a grin that was too much of a distraction for Izzy to even care what was in his hand. He smiled back and glanced down at what he held, sitting up so quickly he spilled tomato soup down his front and over the throw blanket on his bed.

“Shit! Fucking-” Izzy sighed and crawled off the bed, Mark just staring at him, more amused than anything. He stripped his clothes off and dropped them in the sink to rinse later, hoping it wouldn’t stain but not caring enough to do anything about it right then, dropping the blanket (thank god Izzy’s clothes faced the brunt of the tomato-y nightmare) into his basket.

“Thank you for your help, my love,” he snarked, pulling new boxers on, thinking way too long about staying shirtless for him to actually do so, and pulling on an old shirt of Mark’s that had moved its way into Izzy’s laundry.

“Forgive me, dear, who was it that scrubbed your vomit from the carpet?”

Izzy squinted at him and flipped him off. His attention was drawn to the gift Mark had been so smiley for, that Izzy had gotten too excited for.

Weed. Several grams of weed. Izzy didn’t want to guess how many, plainly just because he could, but it was enough for the two of them to last the week. At least.

“Where the fuck did you get-”

“Well, we told yer dad about The Sick Boy Method, and he heavily disagreed with the valium. Said you didn’t need more narcotics and neither did ah, said ah was an idiot. He-” Mark raised his eyebrows, “He told us tae take what was left in his flat, from before- Anyways, he told me where tae find it, but ah couldn’t get in. Ah didn’t even get the paracetamol ‘cause yer da said. Anyways, Swanney had some so we spent the rest of the grocery money, but when ah got back, Scott and Tony were in there,”

It was long-winded, but Izzy let him ramble on, knowing all too well that sometimes anxiety made talking a compulsive thing. He wouldn’t cut him short or make him feel annoying, he’d rather sit and listen than risk hurting Mark’s feelings willingly.

“So we chatted them up, told ‘em our plan, and they got the herb for lil ole’ me. Actually, Scott was pretty amenable. Tony slapped me. Like, he slapped me. Told me tae get my shit together. Isn’t he supposed to be the shithead little brother?” Izzy laughed until Mark pouted, soon holding his cheek like he had been wounded.

“You want me to beat up my seventeen-year-old brother for you? I’ll rip the boards down right now and noogie him until he apologizes to you, baby.” Izzy cooed, mimicking Mark’s pout. His hand was waved away with a roll of Mark’s eyes.

“Ah, fuck off, cunt.”

“Are you gonna pout all night, or are you gonna let me roll for you?” Mark furrowed his brows at Izzy, resigning and handing over the bag. Undoubtedly, it’d be as dry as Izzy expected it to be. It’d been sitting in an empty flat for months, but contained well nonetheless. Izzy was offended his father hadn’t told him about it before, but if he’d had it then, he wouldn’t have had it now, so he pulled a clasp box from under the bed without another thought on it.

He emptied the box onto a small tray, a quarter-smoked blunt rolling out. He snorted and wondered when the fuck he’d left it in there. Volcano, several some-odd months before, to calm down before being forced to go clubbing. He kept the memory to himself, holding it out as Mark crawled into the bed after drinking down his lukewarm soup. Mark took it and reached for the lighter on the tray.

“You can have that, it doesn’t look too bad. Might be a lil harsh, though,” Izzy hummed, in a considerably better mood now that an even better yet one had been promised to him. He didn’t have any more wraps, so he stood up, walked to his closet, and pushed clothes on hangers to the side, the little shoe shelf revealing a small, red glass bong. It was clean, mainly because he hated cleaning it and, in his laziness, decided wasting money on wraps was worth it.

He turned around after several lighter flicks and a dejected sigh. Mark was picking at the edge of the blunt, examining it. He must have deemed it not worth smoking, because he politely put it back on the tray.

“Mold?”

“Mold.”

“Fuckin’ grody.”

He made his way to the bed, putting the bong on the comforter and taking a deep breath, stomach twisting and churning. He left it at that, walking away without another word, as calmly as he could in his fear of actually shitting himself, and did his business with the door half-open. Which was an improvement to being watched, if you asked him.

“Mark, honey?” He called, feeling the waistband of his boxers slide down and tickle the hairs on his calves and ankles.

“On it, Iz. Ye handle yerself,” it was comforting, and Izzy had the brief thought that he was thankful to be alive, and that he was alive with the person in his bed. He could have overdosed, he _did_ overdose, but his boyfriend is comforting him while he dreads the next cold shot in his stomach. His boyfriend was going through the hell of getting clean with him even though he wasn’t the one that nearly died.

He washed his hands, pointedly sprayed while staring at Mark as he left and came back into the room, who only flipped him off. The waste of the spray was worth it.

Apparently, Mark had left to get a glass of water in his absence, and Izzy watched him fill the red glass accordingly. He crawled onto the bed and pulled a pillow into his lap. His fingers dug in without thought, growing more anxious in this ache, but he still let Mark take the first pull.

Mark was a cougher.

As soon as he finished his first pull, he held it for all of two seconds before sputtering out a cough and handing over the bong and lighter before holding his shirt covered chest. Izzy scoffed softly, walking on his knees carefully over to rub Mark’s back as he coughed it out, tutting at him.

“Watch and learn, baby boy, you’re gonna see how it’s done,” Izzy boasted, taking a long, dragging pull into his chest, expecting normal, regular, run of the mill weed. Reg. Mid. He held for a few seconds longer than Mark had, making a face at the bong like the red glass could be responsible, but no, it was his father. It was quite a bit stronger than he’d expected, but he had no time to think about that while trying to stifle a coughing fit worse than Mark’s while Mark only stared at him smugly.

“Watch and learn what exactly? A young man look somehow both sad and constipated at the same time?”

“Mark Renton, if you continue verbally abusing me, I will be forced to-” One of Izzy’s favorite things about weed was that, if good enough quality, it would creep up on you, make itself progressively more known as time went on and the smoke kept coming. Izzy was starting, just starting to feel the beginnings of a high, “I will be forced to take your next hit, sir.”

Nice. Strong finish. Mark was affronted, but he took the bong, snatched it more like, and pulled his next hit from it. He didn’t cough as hard or as long as he had the first time, and Izzy gasped. It was meant to come out dramatic. It definitely had not.

Several minutes of passing back and forth, blowing smoke in each other’s faces, snarking remarks at each other, the two men were thoroughly and entirely fucked up. Izzy could hear it in both of their voices, in the giggles interspersed through their banter as they swayed through movements what felt and did not look like grace.

Mark spoke slower, as was expected, but he stuttered to find his words properly, soon laying back and pulling Izzy with him. Izzy’s voice was obviously slurred and slowed as well, but Mark perked up at the change in accent.

Izzy did a wonderful job hiding it, a drawl of a thing crawling its way up his chest and out of his mouth like his mouth was made to fit around it. Mark supposed it was, just like his was made to fit around the way words fell from his own mouth.

After a moment about talking about nothing in particular, Izzy noticed the stare and let his voice dwindle to a murmur and wrapping an arm over Mark’s ribs, fingers tracing in the dips and grooves of pretty skin pulled too tight over pretty bones on a pretty man-

_Get a hold of yourself._

“What’re you lookin’ at, fella?” Izzy hummed, jabbing his finger lightly between Mark’s ribs. Mark just looked at Izzy with big, glazed over eyes, red flirting at the corners.

“How come ye don’t always talk like that right there?”

Izzy’s face screwed up, confusion painting over his relaxed features.

“I don’t think I’m talking any sorta way, love,” he hummed, looking to the ceiling and tapping his fingers on his own chest.

“Well, you talk a bit like this, darlin’ dear. Kinda like a cowboy,” Mark emphasized a southern drawl, much stronger than Izzy’s, making Izzy blink at him and huff a snort.

“Gotta get me one of the hats then, hm?” Izzy teased, looking at Mark again, his pupils dilated with the weed.

“We can be the horse, pbbbb-” Mark tried to imitate a horse nickering, succeeding only enough to make Izzy laugh, jabbing his side like the younger man had before.

“You asking us to ride you, then, Renton?” Laughter subsided soon after, and Mark just stared, shrugging and settling into where he lay.

“That, my dear, is up tae the cowboy,” Mark explained, and Izzy blinked at him slowly. He grinned, patting Mark’s belly and rolling to his side.

“How about we finish the bowl and you go on and initiate whatever it is you’re wanting to initiate,” Izzy offered. Mark’s cheeks went a little pink, like he was caught. Izzy wouldn’t consider him caught, but Mark tried to explain himself anyways.

“Well, ah don’t-”

“You’re allowed to want things as much as you want, as long as you respect a ‘no,’ but there won’t be a ‘no’ tonight if that’s what you’re wanting,” Izzy explained, reaching over him for the pipe and lighter, sitting up and draping a leg over Mark’s lap. Mark looked up at him, wondered how long Izzy’d known Mark had been the kind to just go without asking to avoid the ‘no.’

He wasn’t normally that kind of man. Not in the past, at least. He didn’t like to think about it, but he wasn’t the best person. He was sure that if he was still that person, he’d be sated in the sexual department and not with Izzy, while still reaping the benefits of being with him. Smoke was blown in his face and he thought about how lucky he was to have figured at least part of his shit out, lucky to be right in the process of getting clean.

Izzy passed the pipe to Mark, he sat up halfway and took his hit, long and dragged and Izzy just watched him as the remaining bud in the bowl burned out and Mark held it a half moment before sitting up and cupping his boyfriend’s cheeks and kissing him, giving gentle little taps to the underside of his jaw to signal him.

He breathed in any smoke Mark gave him reaching up to cup his jaw just as he started pushing him down, pulling away when he was finished feeding the smoke to him. Izzy let himself relax into the pillow, taking the little kisses Mark was planting around his mouth.

He took notice of Mark straddling him again, amused by the concept and taking advantage of it. He squeezed Mark’s hips, hands pushing back and under the waistband of pajama pants that hung off his hips to begin with. Mark offered a little moan when Izzy squeezed the flesh of his ass, almost surprised with himself, ignoring the grin painting across the mouth of the man below him.

“Letters tae Penthouse, ah moan when my dickless tranny boyfriend gropes my cute little arse-”

Izzy's voice mimicked Mark's all too well.

“Wit the fuck are ye oan about?” Mark cut him off, face getting redder, his lips glistening and kissed pink.

“I’m just thinking maybe I have to invest in a strap-on, is all.” Mark’s eyes widened and he shoved Izzy’s laughing face away and got up, wiping his hands down his shirt and crossing his arms. Izzy stood on his knees and pouted heavily.

“Aw, c’mere, my love, you know I’m just teasing you,” Izzy amended, reaching out for Mark and bringing him closer.

“Didn’t wanna fuck, so ah take preventative measures, and this is what ah get: disrespect. Starting tae think ye dinnae take us seriously,” Mark grumbled, sticking his tongue out at Izzy and winking, at least assuring him that he wasn’t serious. He didn’t think he’d ever been upset with him.

“And why don’t you?” Izzy was surprised at his own disappointment with the statement, bottom lip pouting out at the reveal.

“Ah personally believe it isn’t a risk am willing to take when we both have upset tummies,” Mark explained, hand reaching down to pat his own bare stomach and Izzy’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ as he nodded.

“Got a brain behind that pretty face after all, eh?” Izzy pecked his lips and smiled, running his palms over his hair gently just to feel the tickle in his palms and the way the other man would push into the touch.

“You think we’re pretty, lad?” Mark gasped and pulled Izzy into his arms, Izzy soon shoving his face away as his face was covered in kisses.

+++

By the fourth day, Izzy was sure he’d never think the word heroin again without tasting bile in his throat. See, he knew withdrawals and getting clean would be strenuous, objectively he knew this and had accepted it without asking for guidance from his boyfriend, who had gone through this before. But he sure as fucking hell hadn’t offered Izzy guidance either.

At least, that’s how Izzy reasoned with his anger. He was worlds more agitated than Mark was, but Mark had enough anxiety for the both of them and then some. It wasn’t really a good match, even with the weed. He’d not expected to see him this anxious, this close to the verge of tears.

But that didn’t really stop the filter from lifting and snappy little remarks biting at Mark from happening. He felt bad about it, he really did, but between the smell of vomit, the taste of vomit, the fear of vomit, and the cramps, he couldn’t find enough in him to stop himself from getting downright irritated, and in turn, directing it at the other man.

Case in point, Mark was then curled up in the opposite corner of the couch, leaving Izzy to his own corner and staring blankly at the TV with red ears and pink rimmed eyes. Izzy would remark how beautiful it was to see the color return to Mark’s face if it wasn’t the color of trying not to get upset. Of feeling dejected.

Mark was only on that side of the couch because he’d tried to curl up in Izzy’s side and get comfortable with him, seeking comfort of some sort, when Izzy had wrenched his body away and huffed a sigh. Mark opened his mouth to ask, earning a look cut in his direction, and he crawled to the other side and curled in on himself silently.

Izzy wanted to apologize immediately, he really did, but his stomach growled and sent him to the toilet instead, emptying it of the water and crackers he’d finished just moments before.

He stared at the chunks in the porcelain bowl and grimaced, groaning as he got to his feet and flushed it down. He opted to brush his teeth and realized he hadn’t at all that day and this was his third ralphing. Gross. Maybe it was a good thing that he hadn’t let Mark cuddle up; his breath smelled like shit.

He spit foam, then a moment later mouthwash, into the sink and rinsed it down, toothbrush finding its way next to Mark’s in the mug on the sink. He watched the plastic bounce around and clink against the glass briefly, anxiety surrounding the guilt surrounding the empty. He held the edge of the sink and tapped his fingers against the dampness of it and on the next intake of breath, his mouth was icy and fresh. He sighed and left the bathroom, not bothering to turn the light off as he did so.

Izzy eyed Mark where he was staring blankly at the tv, legs pulled up to his chest, an arm wrapped around one of them in an absent hug, still curled in on the corner. He made no move to look at Izzy, so if he knew he had returned, Izzy had no clue. He cleared his throat. No reaction. He stepped into the room and dropped to all fours, crawling to the edge of the couch and settling next to it. He leaned his head there, knocking against Mark’s gently.

“Wit ye want, love?”

Mark made no move still and Izzy could hear an emptiness in his voice. They were both trying to cope with this and Izzy wasn’t being fair, but Mark felt he’d be the one being unfair if he pushed the envelope, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Izzy pushed himself to his feet and settled in the creaky recliner on the other side of the couch. It’d been his grandmother’s, amazingly, and despite how vocal it was, the chair was sturdier than any Izzy had ever planted his ass in.

Izzy got settled in the chair but didn’t recline it, catching Mark eyeing him as much as he could without moving. Since they’d boarded up the doors, Mark had held Izzy and shown him any amount of affection he’d requested and stopped when Izzy had politely declined, so Izzy wanted to make it up to him, apologize for the inequality in their giving.

Even though he was already comfortable, he stood up and went to his - their? - room and retrieved a blunt and his yellow lighter from the side table. Originally, he hadn’t had any left, but on day three Spud pushed several cigar packs and a film through the mail slot as per their request. Izzy missed the others, but this was more important than the sad lilt of Spud’s voice when he told the two men to keep their chins up and to hurry up and get clean.

Izzy found his seat again, catching Mark’s eyes as he passed by.

He patted his lap as he got settled and scooted a little to the side.

“C’mere, Renton.”

Nothing. Flick of a lighter, then another, a sigh, then a third. Inhale, hold, release.

“Baby, please?” Izzy watched Mark, watched him stand and look swallowed by a black sweater that came past his boxers. He hugged himself and padded over, eyes down as he sat on the arm of the recliner, reaching for the blunt.

“Ah, ah, on our lap, babe,” Izzy hummed, shimmying his hips and pulling the blunt out of reach. Mark frowned and stared at Izzy’s lap, sighing and turning, standing again so he could effectively situate himself in the smaller man’s lap. He curled in on them, ass between Izzy’s thigh and the arm of the chair, head on his shoulder. Mark held his fingers out, pinching them in the air.

Izzy handed it over and watched him take a long drag, then a smaller one before handing it back. He took it and didn’t wait for Mark’s exhale to take his next drag.

“I didn’t mean to react that way,” he explained softly during his exhale, voice a little strained with the smoke. He took another drag before passing it.

“Ah know it, Iz. Ye can’t help it, just wanted to be close to ye, ah guess,” he mumbled. Izzy pushed his free hand up under the back of the black sweater and rubbed Mark’s back. There were beads of sweat rolling down, dampening his fingers, but he continued to do so. Who cares? They’d both sweated a hole into the bed through the night, it was just a fact that sweat was going to be abundant in their current situation.

“I wanna be close, it was just instinctual. You can stay mad at me as long as you like, no extra charge, I deserve it,” Izzy joked, only for Mark to shift and look up at him, kissing where his jaw met his chin.

“Was never mad at ye, love, just. I guess it’s all the feelings that come with this, plus we’ve never done this not-alone, y’know?”

Mark’s voice was already getting sleepier, but not the kind that comes with the need for sleep. Izzy thanked whatever god was listening for marijuana. Knowing Mark was feeling the anxiety and doubt that Izzy was, not just the physical side effects, was enough to bore a hole in his chest.

Speaking of, Izzy shifted as his stomach twisted and cramped, and he thought for a moment that he’d have to cut this short, but it didn’t become anything except what it was: pain. Now, Izzy was used to cramps, his menstrual cycle was never an easy thing for him to go through, but he figured it was deserving. Like a punishment for getting addicted. While the high was your best orgasm multiplied, the cleanse was your worst period multiplied, he guessed.

Mark groaned softly with his own cramps, forehead dotted with sweat as he passed the quickly running out stick of pain-relief. Izzy took it even though the high of it was already settled in his bones, making him feel airy and heavy and the pressure of Mark in his lap was absolutely his favorite weight that he could think of.

“Dunno why these cramps affect you so badly, love, I gotta deal with them monthly,” Izzy teased, voice either coming across seriously or Mark was just high enough to believe him. He stared at him incredulously.

“There’s no fuckin’ way. Monthly? How are ye not fucking dead by now?”

Izzy snickered and pecked his chapped lips, taking his drag and passing the rest back to the man. He shifted and shook his head, leaning it back against the burgundy cushion of the chair.

“Just fuckin’ with you. Could you imagine? I just breeze through kicking skag just cause I happened to be born with tits?” His voice was good and fucked, slurring sweetly as he spoke and relaxed. Mark snorted and thumped Izzy’s throat, where he imagined an Adam’s Apple would be if he were so lucky as to have one.

“Ngk- If you want to tussle, come back later, I’m here for the cuddles,” Izzy huffed, smacking the back of Mark’s head gently and getting a laugh in return. He felt Mark sink down, pulling Izzy’s own boxers with him. He would have complained that his ass was now bare against the chair if Mark hadn’t cuddled up to him like a pup, face in his neck.

He felt him inhale and sigh contentedly and Izzy felt his own heart swell. He kissed Mark’s head and leaned his own against it, the short, soft hairs tickling his cheek.

+++

Izzy woke up to being plopped down on his bed, Mark having carried him to their bedroom. He felt fingers in the waistband, making his eyes shoot open, glimpsing down and shoving away, jerking his boxers up around his waist safely.

Mark went wide eyed and put his hands up, standing up straight at Izzy’s feet as he caught his breath and looked around, eyes landing on Mark last and he felt guilty immediately.

“Mark, I-”

“No, I understand, that. I’m sorry, I was just trying tae fix them, but I understand what it looked like,” He sighed, running a shaky hand over his head as he did so, “Are you okay? I didn’t scare you too bad, did I?” He stayed where he was, but Izzy didn’t want that.

His heart was pounding and he was shaking, but he nodded and sat up, stretching his arms out as he got to his knees. His eyes were big and almost pouty, convincing the man to crawl towards him and pull him into his arms.

He rubbed Izzy’s back gently and sighed into his neck.

“You wanna dip into the ice cream?” Izzy asked, biting his lip hopefully and he nodded, squeezing the younger man’s waist and chuckling. He slid out of the bed and went to the kitchen, leaving Izzy behind and getting a tub of vanilla ice cream out.

He took his time scooping portions into the bowl, hands still a little shaky.

Mark had never expected or thought he would be the cause for such a deep terror in Izzy. It made his skin crawl that, even on accident, he had. Guilt about Izzy’s overdose soon joined the new guilt and he tapped the side of the ice cream tub.

_Mark woke up slowly, then suddenly, upon hearing something thud against the floor. He’d slurred Izzy’s name into the room sweetly, but when he got no reply, he sat up, uneasy, and saw his limp form on the floor. At first, he’d assumed he’d blacked out, as he’d drank quite a bit and gotten into a fight, but then he saw the needle._

_Izzy’s arm was limp, with a needle hanging from it. It didn’t feel right at all, not like all the times Mark had seen the same from Si or even Spud, and he fell to his knees from the bed, crawling over the smaller man and pulling the needle from his arm, throwing it in his haste._

_“Izzy? Izzy, my love, open your eyes,” Mark begged, smacking his cheeks gently and watching his head loll. His eyelids fluttered open, each at different times and completely uncoordinated. He was barely breathing, and Mark panicked, clumsily pulling Izzy’s shirt and binder off in hopes that it would help, putting the shirt back on him and wasting time with it, as he was still far too drunk to think it through._

_Izzy gasped and shuddered, rolling onto his side and retching, stomach pumping alcohol, peanuts, and shitty nachos onto the carpet. Mark looked around for the phone and decided there was no time, dragging Izzy’s mess of a form into his arms and carrying him down the single flight of stairs down to the first floor, banging his fist against Alex’s door. The only reason he’d even known which it was was because Izzy pointed it out every single time they went for the stairs and-_

_Alex answered and the rest was a blur. Getting into his car, almost dropping Izzy in the process, holding Izzy as close as he could and taking to him the entire ride, feeling Izzy piss his pants and effectively, by proxy, piss Mark's as well, checking Izzy into the hospital, calling his father, dealing with both Alex and James tearing into him ruthlessly in the parking lot until Simon had cut in. Mark told him what had happened, shaking and sniffling, wiping his face of tears and noticing the blood on his hand._

_Blood? Oh, right. Izzy had smacked his head against the corner of the wall when he collapsed. Mark couldn’t get the smell out of his nose until he saw Izzy again. They were getting clean, whether Izzy liked it or not._

_He felt empty cleaning the vomitus out of the carpet, but he scrubbed the spot until it was cleaner than the rest of the carpet, and he figured it would have to stay there as a reminder of sin, and he thought that was such an Izzy thing to say and the guilt made him throw up on the carpet. He cleaned that too._

Mark sighed and stared at the ice cream, watching it get glassy as it only just began to melt, blinking whatever emotions welled into his eyes away. He searched the cabinets and found oatmeal creme pies, and just his luck was that there were two left. He tore into the packages and dropped one into each bowl, padding back into the bedroom. He could feet sweat tickling the peach fuzz on the small of his back.

Izzy was curled up thumbing through a notebook, dropping it to the floor when he saw Mark, perking up. He was happy to see him, of course, but happier to not have to be alone any longer. While he was gone, for much longer than it would have taken him to get the ice cream, he’d put a record on. He hadn’t really paid attention to what, likely stuck on Mark taking so long and getting far more insecure than he would have ever liked about it.

Izzy had started sweating again, and he moved too quickly to stand up when he saw his lover, so his rush to the bathroom was swift. He retched the little to no contents of his stomach up, as well as bile and stomach acid, making his gums sore. He groaned and brushed his teeth as best he could, suddenly more anxious about leftover smell than he had been before. Izzy spit foamy, thoroughly-swished mouthwash into the sink and wiped his mouth, finding the bed once more.

Mark was waiting patiently with a warm smile, holding the two bowls. Izzy took his own and sat facing Mark, their laps comfortably shifting together as Izzy stared at the contents, cutting a chunk from the snack cake and getting a bite with the ice cream.

“I bought these snackies like, two years back,” He informed, taking a bite and finding no suspicious taste or texture. Mark made a face but watched you take the bite. He realized the shelf life for unhealthy disasters of food and sealing rules and grimaced at the state of the world and the preservatives around it and its fatty foods.

Izzy laughed at the look on his face and knew it well. Mark took a bite and did examining of his own, and Izzy figured it passed his test because he went in for another bite directly after swallowing.

He felt the need to ask Mark something, but the question left his head as soon as it came, and he spent several quiet moments trying to remember the question, looking around his room and spotting his pocketknife.

“Oh… Hey, love?”

“Hm?” Mark was chopping the creme pie up with his spoon and mixing the chunks into his ice cream. He almost forgot the question again.

“Did Francis almost stab me?”

Mark blinked at Izzy and thought for a moment, mouth forming an o.

“Aye, that he did, crazy cunt,” Mark nodded, pointing his spoon at you, “Ye broke his nose and busted his eyebrow real good, though, lad,” He laughed, proud of Izzy more than anything.

“So, I won, right?”

Mark eyed his boyfriend and smirked, nodding.

“How else would a rugged man such as yerself wind up? Oh, no, you were covered in blood, my love,” Mark cooed, taking a bite and leaning forward to press a cold kiss to his cheek.

Izzy glowed with pride and finished his bowl, shifting happily in his seat. He leaned forward and put his bowl on the side table, not caring enough to take care of it, before he fell over into Mark’s lap, shifting and looking up at him.

Mark continued eating, every now and then leaning down to press kisses to the subtle worry line in Izzy’s forehead, and Izzy studied as much of his face he could at that angle, sighing and tapping his fingers right above his lungs. The next time Mark looked down, he leaned back to put his bowl in Izzy’s, cupping his cheeks with his chilly fingers.

Izzy grinned and put his hands over Mark’s, pulling individual fingers to his lips and doing his best to kiss the fingertips.

“Wit are ye smiling fer, my love?”

“You know you’re beautiful, right?”

“I-” Mark sniffed and cleared his throat, face getting pink in a matter of seconds in the dim yellow of the room.

“If I had a sketchpad, I’d cover the walls in pictures of you,” Izzy cooed, pushing the envelope plainly because Mark proved his theory and swallowed a noise, an embarrassed one close to a whimper. Izzy reached up and cupped his cheeks in return, soon rolling out of his lap and turning to face him and hold his face.

“Iz, dinnae say things like that,” Mark huffed, covering his face with the crook of his elbow, but the younger man pulled the arm away and tutted at him.

“But you’re so pretty when you’re all pink,” Izzy said sweetly, kissing the tip of his nose, “And you were so soft and sweet earlier when you were curled up in my lap. It’s a shame I fell asleep, I’d hold you forever if I could.”

He wasn’t lying by any means, but the pink over Mark’s face was something priceless, and he couldn’t stop himself. He laid Mark back and straddled him, leaning over to kiss over his cheeks and nose. Mark gasped initially, scrunching his nose.

“We’re bigger and stronger than ye, Iz,” Mark threatened playfully, that whine of embarrassment evident in his whispers.

“Aye? Then do something about it,” He cooed, giving him nosies and giggling, pinning Mark’s hands up next to his head against the bed in a taunt, with no pressure whatsoever.

“Mhm, too tired,” Mark hummed, leaning up to follow when Izzy pulled back, seeking a kiss of his own. He shook his head at the crestfallen look on Mark’s face when he didn’t receive the kiss he’d wanted, kissing everywhere he could on his face except for where he wanted.

More than once, Mark twisted and turned his face, trying to kiss the man on top of him and failing each time, Izzy pulling just out of reach. He leaned back down to continue his teasing when Mark flipped them, pinning Izzy and kissing him sweetly.

Izzy kissed back, even deepened the kiss, but when Mark pulled away, he gasped dramatically.

“I can’t believe you cheated!”

“Cheated? Me? Fair is my middle name!”

“I call do-over, you seduced me, I couldn’t resist such a sweet kiss from such sweet lips,” Izzy sighed, letting his head hit the bed with his drama painted antics.

“Well, ah would _never_ seduce ye, so ye _must_ be mistaken, lad,” He claimed, keeping Izzy’s wrists against the bed firmly. He knew Izzy played dirty and he wanted to keep the upper hand.

“Hm let us go and we’ll call a truce,” Izzy asked sweetly, leaning up and snapping his teeth gently in teasing, tugging his wrists.

“Might sleep like this, last time ah let ye go, ye smacked us off the bed with yer pillow,” he raised an eyebrow and Izzy’s face went wide with surprise.

“I would _never_! I’m calling the police for libel! Slander! A fucking _lie_!”

Mark laughed and pressed his forehead above Izzy’s sternum, shaking with the noise. Izzy felt the vibration of it in his chest, right against his heart, making him laugh as well.

When their giggles died down, Izzy wiggled his wrists and sighed when Mark didn’t let him go.

“Aw, c’mon, Mark, give us a kiss and let me go?”

Mark gave Izzy a kiss, pressing gently and letting go of his wrists, holding his face instead. Izzy held his hands before moving his own to Mark’s face, mirroring him and pulling from the kiss.

“I won’t fuck your shit up with a pillow. This time.”

“Thank ye for yer mercy, lord,” Mark snarked at you, nipping at your earlobe when he rolled off of him and instead landing his head on the pillow, curling into Izzy and tugging him closer. As much as Izzy wanted to, he got too comfortable too fast to roll over and insist on being the big spoon to Mark’s little spoon. _Next time_ , he promised himself.

The record faded into static and neither made a move to flip it.

+++

Day five passed with more of the same, but at least Izzy could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It felt more important than ever to see it through, getting and staying clean, and every time Izzy emptied his stomach or his bowels (and he noticed just how easier it was and how much less urgent or painful it was to do so), he thought about a true and genuine future. He scribbled away in an empty notebook most of day five, filling it with doodles of Mark to distract himself when the film in the VCR didn’t do its job, as well as hopes.

Hopes for being better, he guessed. Fantasizing about getting a job? One page was covered in his feelings towards having children at some point. He didn’t feel up for giving it more than the almost full page he had already given to it, so the line of thought wasn’t allowed to go much past that. He filled the notebook nearly halfway by the time he fell asleep, Mark’s legs in his lap on the couch during film four of the day, leaning at an awkward angle towards his boyfriend as he fought sleep and his pen fell snugly into the crease of the notebook.

Izzy woke up to Mark’s light snoring in his ear around noon, laying on his back with one leg hanging off, pushed right to the edge next to the mess of tangled limbs situated on top of and beside him. He opened his mouth to complain about being too sore, but the thing was, he wasn’t. He was tired, and he figured it wasn’t more tired than he had been all week, but it was definitely more noticeable now that his limbs weren’t aching so terribly, now that his stomach didn’t turn at the thought of food or being touched.

For the first time in three days, he didn’t feel the need for a panic attack more than usual, and he marked that, too, up as a good sign.

He laid still, snuggling into the other man and resting his eyes, not able to fall asleep. After half an hour of trying, he gave up and resigned to breathing Mark in and, every so often, planting a little kiss to his collarbones through the patterned shirt.

It reminded him of the day at Mark and Simon’s, the day after Izzy’s first date with the white horse, and he compared the experience. He scooted back just slightly, unburying himself in the man’s chest to instead look at his face and really look at him, but-

“Yer an asshole,” Mark grumbled softly, voice rough with sleep. Izzy thought it was all a good look on him, wrecked voice, eyebags.

“Whatever for, my love?” Izzy asked innocently, as if he knew at all what he meant to begin with. He didn’t.

“We’re always tae one carryin’ ye tae bed. Dinnae see yer ass carrying me anywhere,” Mark huffed, untangling his hand with the sheets over Izzy’s waist and pulling it up to push Izzy’s face away playfully, instead miscalculating and shoving the smaller man to the floor.

Izzy yelped and hit the ground with a thud, groaning. He started laughing soon after, scurrying to his feet and grabbing the edge of the bed, aiming to pull himself back onto the bed and instead connecting full-faced with a panicked Mark.

In Mark’s attempt to check on Izzy, and Izzy’s to get to his feet, their noses busted against each other’s faces, Izzy’s against cheekbone and Mark’s against forehead, both men flying back to their backs immediately. There had definitely been at least one unnatural noise in the event, and Izzy’s hands flew to the middle of his face.

“Fucking _fuck_ , holy shit,” Mark sweared angrily, but Izzy was focused on the fact that his eyes were burning, his hands felt wet and he wasn’t sure if it was from his burning nose or his tear ducts, and he felt a sneeze coming.

“Who- Whose nose is-” Izzy asked, squeezing his nose to prevent the sneeze and only feeling a crunch in return, screaming into his hand and deciding it was _his_ nose that had been broken in the process. When he screamed, Mark shot up and peeked over the edge of the bed, holding his nose with one hand. Izzy looked up just in time to feel Mark dripping blood all over his calves, making him snort at the realization that maybe _both_ noses in the room were broken, but the snort only served the purpose of making him wince and bang his head backwards against the ground.

Mark laughed at the sight, several drops of blood hitting Izzy’s legs in a quicker procession than before with the airflow. He crawled off the bed and held his free hand out to Izzy, helping him to his feet. Izzy thought for a moment, going to the bathroom and grabbing a rag and a hand towel, handing the towel to Mark.

They both winced when replacing their hands with thicker fabric. The little hisses of pain and Izzy’s lack of experience made him remember that the answer to the problem was right down the hall. His dad.

“Didn’t James mention fixing Scotty’s nose?” Mark asked, muffled behind the plush, red hand towel, and Izzy was glad they were on the same page, but wondered when the fuck there had ever been time for him to have been told that. He vaguely remembered Izzy’s family and Mark sitting in the living room sharing stories the night after the funeral, and he was suddenly angry with himself for having missed something like that.

“Iz?” Mark snapped in front of his face gently and he focused on his eyes, smiling and nodding.

“I’ll get the hammer, you’re right.” Mark didn’t question Izzy and nodded. They tore down the boards in under ten minutes, and Izzy’s face was throbbing, no longer actively bleeding, but if Mark’s face was any indication after they’d discarded the rags into the kitchen sink, he was sure he looked a mess.

Blood smeared across Mark’s face, caked under his nose and on his upper lip, nose luckily not split, but bruising around his nose and in the corners of his eyes promising dark purples and reds within the next hour. In their pajamas (if both men in boxers and long sleeve shirts counted as pajamas, really) and covered in blood, the men walked side by side to James’ room, knocking and waiting.

When he didn’t answer, Izzy shifted on his feet and Mark took his right hand with his left and Izzy could feel flaking, dried blood on his palm. This was grounding for him, and he didn’t question it. After a moment, he knocked again and soon heard shuffling footsteps towards the door and he smiled wide, glancing at Mark, who was nervously doing the same thing.

The door opened and Tony stood there, and when Izzy expected his younger brother to be worried, anger made an appearance instead, and Mark was dragged into the room by his collar, shoved against the wall and held there. Mark made a less than “manly” noise and Izzy yelped, dragged into the room suit, still holding the man’s hand. When he realized what it must have looked like, Izzy raised his voice.

“Hey- Hey, _hey_! Tony, fucking let him go it was an accident-” Izzy started, voice scratching with sleep still. Tony didn’t budge, glaring holes into Mark’s face, completely ignoring that they both held similar wounds.

Scott padded in, in nothing but his knickers, and rubbed his eyes.

“Whas all this yellin’ about- Tony, why the fuck-” Izzy jerked his eyes to Scott and Scott had a similar reaction, stepping forward in anger until he saw Mark’s face.

“Oy, idiot, let the man down,” Scott huffed, smacking Tony in the back of the head. Mark was dropped and Tony shoved Scott instead, Scott falling backward on the couch over the arm of it. Scott laughed as if this was a regular thing not to be given serious attention and stayed where he was.

Tony turned back to Mark and held an accusing finger in his face, “Explain, now.”

“Well, ah woke up this mornin’ and thought tae myself, what if ah just beat the love of my life’s face in, we’ll follow it up with smashing my face against the bathroom mirror until-” Mark ducked as Tony swung and Izzy jerked him behind him, pinching his side and hearing him hiss at it as he cowered with a wide grin behind the man.

“You’re so fucking stupid, Mark,” Izzy told him over his shoulder, holding a hand out to block Tony from coming closer.

“Is that why ye love us so much, dear?”

“Obviously.”

Izzy felt a kiss being pressed to his shoulder just in time for James to finally make an appearance, wearing fuller pajamas than Izzy knew he was wearing before he came out of his room.

“Do none of you ever shut the fuck up? And what the fuck are you doing out of you-” James paused when both Izzy and Mark turned their heads to look at him, faces thoroughly fucked up, and sighed, pinching his nose, “Scott, go get the first aid.”

Scott did as he was told and Tony’s vendetta dropped almost instantly, his focus heading to the kitchen and Scott came back. James sat on the study wooden coffee table in front of them on the couch, and, because it was both of their faults, he made each of them hold the other still as he reset their noses. Izzy’s nose was split, but didn’t need stitches, and after the longest tending to in the world and both men talking over each other to explain what had happened, James finally stood up and walked away.

Izzy and Mark stayed on the couch, Izzy pulling his knees up to his chest when he sat back, Mark crossing his and pulling them up onto the cushion comfortably. Izzy reached over and grabbed his hand, reminded of the blood again and he made a mental note that a shower was likely in order when they got back.

“So, I’m guessing your little self-quarantine is over?” James asked, cleaning his glasses on his Janis Joplin t-shirt and Izzy didn’t need to look at it for long to see how many small holes had been worn into the fabric over the last three decades.

“We’re obviously ready to become working members of society, we might join a cult and work our way up to the top and overthrow the leader,” Izzy said nonchalantly, cutting a grin that genuinely hurt to make at Mark.

A flash filled the room for a split second and both men jerked their heads in the direction of it, seeing Scott, somehow in front of the coffee table where he hadn’t been just seconds before, take a polaroid out and shake it. It made Izzy cringe, knowing shaking it was unnecessary, but he felt the normal rush of embarrassment he usually felt with photography. He hated it, detested it, yet he was curious to see the photo.

The only photos he’d been in in the last several years were with his parents, forced, and with the group, candid. None with only Mark, unless you’d count the one in Mark’s wallet that Simon had taken that morning on the couch with the disposable, the one Izzy didn’t know about - It wasn’t like Mark hid the existence of the photo from Izzy, he’d just forgotten (plus, it was slightly creased down the middle, as Mark kept it in the largest pocket in the leather where money was supposed to go and hardly ever did). Izzy rubbed a hand over his face and winced, huffing and holding his hand out for the picture.

When it was handed over, he saw, in pretty good quality if you asked him, Izzy grinning at Mark and hugging his legs with one hand, holding Mark’s hand up just slightly with the other, and Mark smiling warmly back at him. The little details, like creased eye corners and matching bloody and bandaged faces, blood spatter and smear covering Izzy’s legs, the just slightly grown out buzzed heads, and Mark’s two day old stubble. He smiled at the polaroid and wiggled it gently, twisting it to show to Mark, who had a similar reaction, eyes darting around the photo.

“One fer tae grandkids, aye, Iz?” Mark teased, taking the photo and thumping it with a grin that slowly died, not because it didn’t want to be there, but because it hurt to keep. Izzy considered the remark, recognized that it was only teasing, but the concept of having not only children, but _grandchildren_ with the man made him regret only having one page dedicated to it.

Children were complicated. A year ago, just a few short months before Mark came into his life, if you had told him kids were a possibility, he would have thrown up in your lap for even suggesting it. The thought alone made him dysphoric, a deep, slimy feeling coating his bones, but further than that, his own self-loathing, his own fear of repeating abuse, his own fear of Mark never meaning it more than a tease, his own fear of another miscarriage, all of these things made his stomach cold.

But still he smiled, a hesitated thing, and it didn’t go unnoticed by the man. He didn’t ask or address it, it would have been inappropriate, even he knew that, but he had a feeling he knew.

“Aye, Rents,” Izzy hummed, leaning forward and pecking Mark on the lips, another flash filling the room and Izzy sighed, not looking at Scott and still hearing the tiny _flubbawubbabwub_ of the photograph. He laughed against Mark’s mouth, enjoying the moment for what it was.

They left the flat with seven polaroids, only four of them candid, four of them posed and Izzy had to give his best effort, more uncomfortable with each flash of the camera, and James had kept one, smiling at it despite the state of the men in the middle of the photo, Scott and Tony sitting on either side of the pair for the photo. He took two like that, and Izzy felt his own best-attempt-at-warm-and-welcoming faltering before the final flash, and James apologized in his ear when he hugged him goodbye.

The pair decided that the best course of action would be to get a shower, go to dinner with Izzy’s family, swing ‘round Simon’s then Alex’s, turn in for the night.

This was easier said than done.

In the shower, Izzy was exhausted. He did his best to wash Mark’s face, being as gentle as he could and wiping over stray drops of blood on his neck. His eyes were getting heavier, and he fought it. He’d only been awake nearly five hours, but the hot water and Mark’s hands on his face gently scrubbing away dried blood as best he could, not looking Izzy in the eye but studying his face in the dim light of the bathroom, planting a kiss on his forehead when he was finished.

He dropped to his knees in front of Izzy and it suddenly wasn’t a problem to keep his eyes open anymore. He stared down in question, Mark kneeling on one leg, his other knee coming up. He pulling one of Izzy’s legs up and resting the foot on his thigh, scrubbing blood away a little vigorously than he had on his face, bubbles foaming up with the friction.

When the soap rinsed away, he kissed the calf and gave the other leg the same treatment and Izzy just watched him in bashful awe. His face was warmer than could be attributed to the steam around them, and he planted his hand over his own chest, tapping there in disbelief.

“Can we cancel on my dad?”

“Sleepy, aren’t ye?” Mark grinned up at him smugly, and Izzy cut his eyes at him, sticking his tongue out.

“Maybe I’m in the mood for something else, is all,” Izzy huffed, crossing his arms and leaning against the tiled wall, cold against his back. Oddly soothing, he thought.

“Oh? And what could you be in the mood for?” Mark asked sweetly, kissing Izzy’s knee and running a hand up his calf, fingers resting against the soft back of his knee, squeezing softly. Izzy chewed his lip and raised an eyebrow.

“Give us a kiss, and I’ll tell you,” Izzy promised. Mark took it upon himself to make the slowest ascent he could, kissing up Izzy’s thigh, teasing inward and closer and closer and closer- then his hip, kissing the dip that had been accentuated by general junkie-ism. Izzy’s knees buckled slightly when Mark dug his teeth in there, the skin blemishing an immediate red under the pressure and hot water. He pushed Izzy’s hips to the wall and paid no other mind to him, kissing across to his naval, up into the dig between each rib, into the inherent shame and embarrassment Izzy felt in his core, just an inch above the last place Mark’s lips landed before he got all to close to a bare chest he’d never gotten to give the attention he wanted to.

He considered it, Izzy saw it, Mark knew Izzy saw it, and still didn’t, kissing up his sternum right up the middle instead, kissing his collarbones and leaving little red streaks similar to the ones on his hip and Izzy was panting by the time Mark got to his lips. He was framed against the wall, flush between Mark and the wall, feeling anything but trapped. He could feel the needy rise and fall of his lungs more accentuated against Mark, and he could feel Mark’s excitement in a much more obvious fashion against his naval.

Mark hovered over his lips, kissing the corners gently until they pulled into a smile and he rested his forearms against the wall beside Izzy’s head, framing him in entirely. Izzy trailed fingers up Mark’s sides and felt him shiver, shivering with him just to share the feeling.

“Tell us what you’d rather do, darling,” Mark spoke sweetly, voice slow and warm like honey. Izzy kissed his way to his ear and pulled him close, bodies rubbing together as he stood on his toes to lean into his ear and whisper.

“You really wanna know what I’d rather do, baby?” He asked sweetly, teeth finding his earlobe and pulling gently. Mark swallowed a groan and nodded.

“More than _anything_ in the world,” Izzy hummed, moaning softly into his ear and scraping nails down his back, “I want a nap.”

If a record scratch was a feeling, it would have been felt by both of them at once. Mark scoffed and pulled away, looking at him incredulously.

“A nap?” He asked, cheeks turning pink.

“Mm, a nap.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, Izzy-” Mark huffed, hands moving to cover his crotch, no longer looking directly at his boyfriend. Izzy laughed and turned the water off.

“If you think I’m serious, you can deal with that on your own,” he teased, stepping out of the shower and leaving Mark to stand there, confused.

“If you can be patient until we’re both rebandaged, I’ll postpone the nap,” Izzy promised, pulling Mark’s hands away from his crotch and not physically addressing the situation there, guiding Mark out of the shower and kissing him gently.

Mark pouted and shifted the whole time Izzy bandaged his face. When he bandaged Izzy’s, he asked Izzy to stay standing for it, but Izzy sat anyways, just to see him squirm. And squirm he did, hips awkwardly wrenched away in their kept state of nudity. It was more amusing to Izzy than anything else, but he didn’t share this, only giggling every so often.

When they were finished, Mark didn’t ask or mention the promise, as he felt it would make it obligatory, but he was dragged to the bed nonetheless and Izzy dropped to his knees after pushing Mark to sit on the mattress.

Izzy was too proud for Mark’s taste after having wrenched two orgasms from the man single-handedly, well single-mouthedly, and Izzy flaunted it rather than swallowing it like he had the source of the pride. Just to be a right cunt, he made Mark get up so they could both brush their teeth before their nap.

Mark felt the same exhaustion, settling into his bones and guts as post-coitus hormones and the ever-prevalent getting-and-staying-clean-fatigue. He crawled into the bed naked, situating himself comfortably in the dipped spot he’d worn into the mattress after months of it being _his_ side. He thought of his bed, his actual bed, at his parents and the horrendous wallpaper of trains voering his walls, and he missed it, maybe even missed his parents. He assigned the sudden feelings to being around Izzy’s dad and Izzy having mentioned earlier in the week that he’d like to meet Mark’s parents again.

When Izzy didn’t join Mark in the bed for several minutes, he opened his eyes and sighed, rolling off of the bed and keeping his balance perfectly, which wouldn’t have been at all noticeable to him if he hadn’t demolished his own face that morning due to being clumsy.

He padded into the living room, where Izzy was lounging naked on the couch with his legs crossed. He pointed at the phone and mouthed _Simon_ and went on explaining that they’d be over tomorrow and there was to be no drugs. Mark knew it in his heart that Simon had also gotten clean, because why wouldn’t he? It wouldn’t last, but he could, at least, respect Izzy’s wishes. That didn’t mean he would, but he could. It was a toss up.

Mark leaned against the doorway and watched Izzy play with the cord on the phone, eyes drooping with effort to stay awake. He said his goodbyes a moment later and sighed, hanging up and rubbing his eyes.

“He’s a talker, that one, can tell he misses you,” He remarked, standing up and taking small, sleepy steps back to the bedroom doorway. He wrapped his arms around Mark, who hesitated for just a second before hugging back, realizing he missed Simon, Spud as well, and Tommy. Begbie was a big if, mainly because he never really knew where he and Franco stood, but he was a mate and had been since childhood, so what can you do?

“Did ye tell James?” He asked, kissing the top of Izzy’s head and feeling the short hair tickle his half-chapped lips. Izzy snuggled into him where they stood.

“Mm. He and the others didn’t even get dressed, and he said he thought we were gonna cancel anyways,” He hummed against him, kissing his chest softly and stepping forward, coordinating Mark to step backwards. Mark snorted as he did so, groaning softly at the pain in the direct middle of his face. His bandaging consisted of some butterfly bandaids that were more there so he didn’t touch the sensitive skin than out of necessity, but hell if Izzy didn’t enjoy kissing the bandaids sweetly after putting them on him.

His own bandages were thick gauze taped to his nose, tape on his cheeks, pulling when he smiled up at Mark like he was right then. His eyes were glazed with the need for rest, closing further the bigger his sleepy smile got. He was dragged to bed by Mark, who didn’t have the strength or energy to carry him unless he had to.

Once settled into bed, Mark on his side with one arm and one leg over Izzy, who was laying on his front with his face to Mark but effectively buried into a pillow halfway. It went silent fairly quick, only breathing that was not yet tell-tale of being asleep.

Izzy spoke softly, face smushed and eyes staying closed.

“Hey, Rents?”

“Mm?”

“Really want kids with us?”

Silence for one beat, two, three… By a moment’s silence, Izzy was shifting and ready to pretend he was asleep and hadn’t said anything to begin with.

“One or two, maybe someday,” He hummed softly, fingers spreading and tapping where they rested on Izzy’s pale back, “Might be cute if they look like you. Lil bairns runnin' 'round causing problems.”

Izzy huffed and felt the hot air catch into the pillowcase.

“You’re giving birth to ‘em,” Izzy teased, hand reaching out to find Mark’s waist, giving a gentle squeeze.

“Mm, if ah’m shittin’ then lil fuckers out, we’ll have fifty, then.” Izzy pinched his side and snorted, moaning in pain into the pillow when the dull throb in his nose flared into fire, but he ignored it past that. Mark’s breathing soon evened out, and a pang of passing guilt for keeping him awake made an appearance before it was shooed away.

He was content as he fell asleep, despite losing feeling in his hand at the awkward angle of insisting to touch Mark, knuckles buzzy and scraping against the comforter with the slight movements of rise and fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter!! Tell me all the reasons you think I'm a cunt in the comments! <3 Drop me a kudos if you hate me (or if you want more chapters whoa who knows what will happen).
> 
> Twitter: goregeousewan (join trainspotting twitter for constant reminder that the fandom is way too horny and never shuts the fuck up)  
> Give me a coffee on ko-fi if you feel like it: dumbheathen

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave a comment and a kudos! It really helps encourage me to stay inspired if I'm being entirely honest.
> 
> twitter: goregeouswill  
> ko-fi: dumbheathen


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